The Monsters In Our Heads
by ChaosLilKat
Summary: (Author's Note: There will be some appearances by the Arrow Crew but this is continuing with Dean's POV from "A Fresh Start") Life with Coyote has gone better than Dean hoped, the long vacation has turned into something more. He's finishing up a project for Sam when a call from Krissy gives him an opportunity to help someone that affects him in ways he never expected.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey babe, it's late," She said as she walked into the garage we'd built a few months back. "Sam won't be here for another week." She'd already changed out of the pantsuit she'd worn to the latest meeting about projects to make her people's lives better. I don't like her in suits, she's just not comfortable in them. Stick her in jeans, show her a monster and give her a gun, that's when she gets to be who she really is. Of course that wasn't much of an option these days. She was barefoot, wearing a pair of my sweats, an old t-shirt and half asleep on her feet.

I stuck my head out of the window of Sam's birthday present and gave her a quick kiss. "I know, but the interior is always a bitch and I still have to finish the last coat of paint. How was the meeting?"

She smiled which was a huge improvement over how she usually looked after dealing with tribal stuff. "Good, we worked out a way to get money for the new school and everyone's on board, finally. Somehow Rising Dove managed to make this part seem a lot easier than it is. I think he was just better at dealing with people than I am. Half an hour into these things I usually just want to start throwing punches."

"Nah, I think he'd just mellowed over the years. Rabbit's got some great stories about Rising Dove's pre-Shaman days. You should get him to tell them to you some time."

She sighed and yawned, "If I ever get time. You coming with me to the site tomorrow? Gerald called, he and his hunter buddies have more building supplies they "acquired." We can finish the main building by the end of the month at this rate."

I laughed, "Hey, you asked for my help on getting things together. Not my fault the only people I know tend to be slightly criminally minded."

"Thank God we're building it on tribal land or else we'd have been busted by someone for stolen goods months ago."

"Perks of being a sovereign-ish nation. What time do you want to head to the site?"

"Nine-ish I guess. Gerald said he'd be there by eleven. That will give us plenty of time."

"Sounds good, get some sleep. I'll be up soon."

"All right." She took another look at what I'd spent the last month on, "He's going to flip when he sees this."

"Well, he'll need wheels after I take Baby back and new cars are a pain to maintain. Besides, I think he's old enough to have his own car now."

She laughed, "I still think you're rushing things, why not wait until he's forty?"

"I'll start with the car, if he can handle that responsibility then when he's forty we'll talk about him dating and moving out."

"How generous of you," she kissed my cheek, "Don't take too long, I didn't get to punch people so have all this pent up energy."

Her lips touched my neck but she pulled back quick, her face all twisted up like she'd eaten a salt covered lemon and drank a shot of cheap ass tequila right after, "Uggh, forgot you'd been out here all day. You taste like the damn ocean."

"Still want me to help out with that pent up energy?"

"At this exact moment, no. After you clean up, I'll kiss you again and go from there."

"Hmm, how pragmatic."

"If nothing else I get another kiss out of the deal."

"True that, now scram or I'll never get this done."

"Scramming. Love you."

It still tripped me out when she said that, even though it'd been almost a year since the first time. "You too." I could tell by her smile that she was in the same boat as I was. She left and I decided to take a break and grab a beer. I'd been installing seats and upholstery all day and finishing up the electrical crap which is my least favorite part of rebuilding a car. It's just so damn tedious. I gotta say though, looking at how far it'd come since I'd found it made me smile. Coyote had been slowly introducing me to people over the first few months I'd been there. She'd started with the people that were friends of hers that wouldn't have such a fit that she was dating a white guy. There were a few who were pretty standoffish but most of them seemed okay with it, it wasn't like I was a complete stranger to them, I'd met some of them when her and I were still doing our on and off thing. When a few of the guys found out I'd rebuilt Baby more than once we hit it off. One was Sleeping Rabbit, he was about my age, was married to Singing Fox, had two sons and a daughter and was an absolute car nut. He had a fully stocked garage and was pretty much the Reservation mechanic. They ran the tiny grocery/liquor store that was in the center of town and Singing Fox sold art stuff online. They did okay for themselves as Reservation life goes. There was a pretty high number of beat up old cars on the Reservation, a lot had been abandoned by people moving or passing away and they just sat there for the most part. One day I asked him about all the old cars, who owned them or if they were just sitting there. He told me that for the most part they'd been sitting there for years. He'd thought about restoring them and trying to sell them online but with the store, the kids and the cars he was already working on he didn't have the time. I did but I wasn't going to sell them to people online, mainly because I'd looked up a lot of the license plates and vins and found out they'd been stolen. I wasn't sure if the people who lived there stole them or they'd been dumped elsewhere and the Natives just helped themselves. Turns out that knowing a large group of people that like older cars and weren't too interested in the Carfax history ended up being a benefit in this case. Most hunters aren't like me, they don't emotionally attached to their wheels. They keep their weapons stash portable and trade cars out fairly often to throw off cops when they blow town after a hunt. They also pay cash which is always easier.

I ran the idea by Coyote since I didn't want to take over Rabbit's garage and she went for it pretty quick. I got a bunch of guys together, built a garage in a few days and she ordered tools and a jack. Rabbit has a truck that can tow just about anything so we started hauling junkers to my garage and I went to work. I wasn't all that surprised about how quick the cars moved once I got the word out and I started making some decent money fairly soon. I also helped Rabbit with Reservation mechanic duty which he appreciated and so did the people who had been waiting for him to finish up their cars. Oddly enough fixing cars got a lot of the people who had issues with me over them pretty quick, probably because they saw I wasn't just passing through this time.

Along with hooking hunters up with new rides I also took their previous rides off of them and the moment this car pulled up I knew what I was going to do with it. It belonged to a hunter named Sylvia, it wasn't too trashed but it had definitely seen better days. As soon as it pulled up I could tell the engine was about gone and the transmission was begging to be put out of it's misery. She'd snagged it in a hurry from an old car lot after a job went south and had coaxed it along well enough to get it to me. It needed a whole new interior and just about every panel was a different shade of paint. I sold her a 76 Dodge Truck I'd just finished, she left the car and took off. After she pulled out I sat and stared at the car for awhile, it had a large enough trunk, he'd fit into just fine and it needed a home.

I'd only been on five hunts since deciding to give Coyote and I a shot. Sam had asked several times if I wanted Baby back and I'd been putting it off for a few reasons. First, he needed wheels, sure he could steal them but she was made for the job. There was no point in him lugging weapons around in bags or whatever when she was already equipped with all that and warded. Second, I wanted to make as clean a break as I could from the past. I wasn't going to cut Sam out obviously and he knew if he needed me he could always call but having Baby sitting out in front of the house would be a reminder of what I used to be. If I wanted to be there a hundred percent for Coyote and really live a different life I needed to not see Baby for awhile. Third, as much as I love Baby and view her as mine, she really is part of the family. Sam was the only one of us hunting and her and hunting have always gone hand in hand. Just because I was contemplating quitting didn't mean she didn't still have to work to do. He never said it but I think he'd have been hurt if I'd just taken her, she's always been our home on the road.

He and Roy had teamed up after I left but Roy had listened to what we'd told him about Thea and his choices. He limited the time he hunted, he'd go on two jobs in a row tops and then go back to Starling, help Oliver and spend time with her. I asked him why he did both, hunt and work with Oliver. He said that there were other people on the team there now and while he liked them well enough but he didn't really like having that many people involved with what they did. There were too many different personalities and agendas to deal with for him, too much history between people. He and Sam didn't have history, when they hunted they were focused on the job and that was all there was to it. He'd never abandon Oliver but that didn't mean he had to be there all the time either. I think in some ways it made hunting easier for Sam too for the same reasons. Sam and I had nothing but history and over the years that history had crowded out the job. From things I heard when other hunters dropped by the two of them had turned into a pretty kick ass team which made me feel a whole lot better about Sam. I knew he was with someone who'd have his back no matter what. When Roy went back to Starling Sam kept plugging away at slowly digitizing the Men of Letter archives just in case somehow the place burned down, when he wasn't doing that he'd come for visits. He said he liked the downtime between hunts since we'd never had much of that before and it was nice to come see Coyote and I and have half a normal life.

The last time he'd dropped by he started asking questions to try to find out if I had made any firm decisions on what I was planning to do future wise.

"The truck stop you guys are building is moving quick." That was his opener one night as we were drinking on the porch. Coyote had gone out to help a family who's kid was sick. The parents had had to take the kid to the hospital which was about eight hours away so she went to watch the younger kids while the parents were gone. The truck stop had been a random idea her and I had when eating at Stella's place and I was complaining about how long it took to get there. We jokingly told them that if we built a place closer to home they could come run the diner. By the time we got home Coyote was already making plans in her head and trying to figure out how to get it done. Months later I'd ended up drafting hunters into helping build the place and getting us materials on the cheap. Most hunters don't grow up in the life like Sam and I did, most of them had had day jobs at one point. By the time I finished working my way through my contacts list I'd found two electricians, a former general contractor, a plumber and plenty of manual labor. They all wanted a bigger version of Stella's diner that had rooms next to it so they could stuff their faces and pass out. Hunters tend to be simple people. They want good food, clean beds and sex, you offer them that all in close proximity and they'll move mountains to get it done. Well, we weren't running a whorehouse but two out of three ain't bad. As soon as Coyote told her people what we were up to plenty of them jumped in as well. The whole thing was giving them a lot of hope which was in pretty short supply on the Reservation.

"Yeah, who knew we had a whole construction company at our finger tips?"

He gave me that look, it was going to be one of those conversations. "Well hunters have always been jacks of all trades."

"Kind of have to be."

"So, it's been almost a year. Can I have wild parties yet?"

"As long as you make sure the books don't get ruined, sure."

He threw his hand into the air, "Yes! Finally! I've got an e-vite list all ready to go!"

"E-vite? Is that what the world has come to?"

"Well strippers don't like to give out their phone numbers anymore, they all have Facebook pages now."

I almost dropped my beer, "What? Damn! I knew I was missing out not getting on there. They got vids posted?"

"Yup."

"Aw yeah, never have to leave the house."

"Good thing Coyote likes strippers too huh?"

"I pick my women well Sam." We both laughed at that one. Then he got quiet. "What?"

"You're out of it, aren't you? This is where you want to be now, where you're happy."

I leaned back in the chair and looked out across the plains. It was one of those nights where it's the perfect temperature, there's a light breeze and it's quiet. "If you need me to back you, I'll be there, you know that." I tried to dodge the question. Five hunts in a year was barely hunting at all, we both knew that. We also both knew that if you don't keep your hand in you get sloppy and get hurt or killed. Going back out there had made it pretty clear that it wasn't the life I wanted anymore. I was still helping people, just doing it differently. The truck stop was going to bring in a ton of cash, give people jobs and I'd been shuttling people money ever since I'd started working on the cars. I was used to living on nothing, Coyote's engineering gigs made plenty of money for both of us to live on and the people here were mostly good people. They just needed someone to give them direction and a bit of help.

"That wasn't what I was asking Dean."

"I know, just hadn't really made a decision. Why are you asking?"

"Kind of has to do with Roy. He likes the job, is damn good at it but I think he still sort of feels he's just filling in until you come back. In a way so do I. I know when you and her got back together it was sort of a trial run but seems to me that it's working pretty well. Have you guys even had a fight?"

"Not really, we had some disagreements about things at first. Just getting used to each other's habits but nothing serious."

"So? You haven't even come back to the Bunker after picking up all your clothes. Do you even think of it as home now?"

He wasn't accusing me of anything or mad, he just wanted to know where I was at. "Not really. I mean, it's still important to me and all that but I'm not homesick or anything."

"Okay, do you miss hunting?"

"No." I didn't even have to think about that one, which surprised me but not him. He took it in stride, which made sense since he'd quit the life twice already.

"How about we call a spade a spade then? You're done with the life."

That terrified me. In my head I still saw Coyote and I as some sort of surreal vacation from hunting. Something fucked up was going to happen at some point and rip it all to shreds, it had to. It always had before but still, living out in the middle of nowhere seemed to make it a lot less likely anything would find me. I'd put hex bags in the house to hide it from demons and the chances of them scoping out a place like this was pretty damn low. There wasn't any place for monsters to hide out here, we all knew each other. Sam actually saying that I was done was something I hadn't wanted to admit to, because then the inevitable other shoe would be more likely to drop. But he had a point. I wasn't actively hunting and didn't want to. It felt completely wrong and totally right at the same time.


	2. Truth In Spades

"Yeah, I guess maybe I am. I think. I mean, I don't want you to think you can't pull me back in if things get hairy again but.."

"The desire to hunt is gone. It's not what you want anymore. It's fine, I'm happy for you," he smiled.

"Really? I'm kind of bailing on you."

"No you're not. You're doing what you want, like I told you to do and like you needed to do. Nothing wrong with that."

"So you're okay with this?"

"I'm more okay with it than you are I think. Although it's kind of weird being the hunter in the family."

"Yeah, it's even more weird not being the hunter in the family. Not sure if that means you've grown up or I have."

"I think it's a bit of both. Look, I'm a lot happier with knowing you're here, alive, safe and happy then having you next to me, miserable and throwing yourself into suicide missions. I much prefer sitting with you on a porch next to a firepit than putting you on a pyre and giving you a hunter's funeral. Roy and I work well together and we're staying as clear as possible of demons. I don't want them to know you're not hunting anymore and I sure as hell don't ever want to deal with them again myself. Outside of demons, everything else is pretty run of the mill."

"Don't get cocky," I warned him.

"We aren't, promise, but Dean, you've got to understand that you've earned this. Don't see it as quitting, it's getting what you deserve. No one else in our family made it out of hunting in one piece. We're all that's left, one of us should."

"When you talk like that it doesn't make me want to stay out you know."

"Sorry, must of have been that last beer."

I saw a whole hell of a lot of me in his face right then and I didn't like it. "Sam, nothing says you have to stay in either."

He tried to smile but failed, "Maybe I'll find another reason to get out some day, but not right now. You've got a road map now, with the truck stop, helping Coyote, the people here. That's what you need to follow. I don't have anything else yet. Maybe just sharing yours is the best I can do right now. Hunting with Roy has made me remember why we do what we do. It's not the perfect life but it's where I need to be."

I didn't argue, everything I could have said he'd said to me at some point or other in the past so there wasn't any point. As much as he was being supportive of me it still hurt him, I'd been where he was but he was handling it a lot better than I ever did. "All right. We should probably get some sleep."

"Yeah."

We put the firepit out, gathered up our cans and headed back inside.

"Do you want Baby back now?"

His face didn't show it but he couldn't quite keep it out of his voice. He needed her a lot more than I did right then. "No, she's a hunter's car, not a retired hunter's car. Keep her."

There was no missing his reaction to that, "Thanks, I'd miss her."

"Yeah, I know. Night."

"Night."

He'd left about two days after that, we didn't talk about any of that again, we just went on like nothing had happened. When I told Coyote about it she, like Sam, wasn't all that shocked that I'd finally called it quits.

"You're not all that surprised." I told her after she calmly went about cooking dinner. I was sitting at the table chopping up some vegetables for her.

"After the first month here, you stopped sleeping with a gun under your pillow, the second month you didn't take anything but a blade outside with you and since the third month most of the time you barely even do that. You hang out in Rabbit's garage for hours talking about cars and sports, play with the kids and have helped me in some way or other with every project I've started this year. You're organizing neighborhood cookouts for pete's sake. Just because you haven't said that you quit doesn't make it any less true. Babe, you checked out of hunting by the end of the first month you were here. The first time you told Sam to keep Baby I knew what you'd decided, I just knew better than to say anything to you about it."

"Smart woman."

"I know." She winked. "How's Sam? You told me what he said but how is he?"

"Hurting but I can't do anything to help with that, much as I want to. He probably won't be in the Bunker much now. It's a big place to be by yourself all the time. I just hope he doesn't go on hunts alone to keep himself occupied."

She turned away from the stove, crossed the kitchen, put her arms around my shoulders and leaned into me. "I don't think he will. That's not his way of dealing with things."

"I don't know, he looked a lot like how I used to look."

"He's more likely to pack up all those books, take them to Starling and have Felicity help him with the project. Sam doesn't deal with things by spending time alone, he needs to be around people. He's always been the more social of you two."

"True."

About two weeks after that Sylvia had rolled up in her beat up 69 Mustang coupe that I knew would be perfect for him. He'd gone for a Mustang when he'd been soul less, although it was a crappy ass new one. I figured he must have liked them since when he had a choice about what to drive that's what he took. His birthday was coming up, usually we skip those but I thought it was time to change that and went to work.

Once I'd gotten it through my head that I was actually out of the family business I started missing Baby. Coyote's car was nice and all but in one of those screwy emotional shifts it started feeling like for me to truly be at home I had to have her with me. I knew I wasn't going to go back to hunting, having her in front of me wouldn't change that and she'd been through as much as I had. Maybe it was time for both of us to retire but I wasn't going to leave Sam without something just as tough as she was.

I'd painted her this dark pewter color. Black shows too much dirt and Sam's OCD always kicked in when Baby got dusty. I gave her black cloth seats, wired her up so he could jack in his phone or Ipod for music, found some sweet ass rims and bigger tires. Everything under the hood was brand new and top of the line. I went with a V-8 350 and set the exhaust, tranny and everything else up to be as fuel efficient and fast as possible. I still remembered his crack about Baby not getting good mileage back when he had that Mustang. I built the weapons box in the trunk and hid it a bit better than the one in Baby, had to as the trunk wasn't as deep so it was harder to cover up. I just hoped he wouldn't be upset about me asking for Baby back after I'd already told him he could keep her.

I finished my beer, finished the last bit of wiring that I wanted to do and went back inside. At the rate I was going the car would be done tomorrow, I'd take her on a few more test drive and then start working on the other surprise I was planning for him. Just because I wasn't on the road with him didn't make him any less important and I was going to make it crystal clear to him that if he ever wanted to do more than just share the road map I had now he could.


	3. New Traditions

The next morning I got started on finishing the paint. I'd gotten up around six, figured I'd get a few hours in before we headed out to the site. I really wanted to get it done since I was so close to finished. Around eight or so I turned off the spray gun, pulled off my mask and took a step back to get a good view of what I'd done. "Damn I'm good." I say that a lot when I work on cars, because it's the truth. I set the mask on the counter, washed my hands and went inside. Coyote was sitting at her desk working on an engineering gig. She'd must have hit hyperfocus mode because she didn't look up when I walked in and tried to get her attention. "Hey, she's pretty much done." She didn't even move. Usually when she's like this I leave her alone but I was pretty amped up about how good the car looked so I put my hand on her shoulder and she about jumped out of the chair.

"What the! Oh..hey."

"You okay there darlin'. Didn't expect you to jump that high."

"Yeah, just caught me off guard. What's up?"

"She's pretty much done. I'm starving."

"Really? Sweet!" She headed out to the garage while I dug in the fridge for some food. I was taking the first bite of a sandwich when she popped back in.

"Damn, you're good."

"I said the same thing a few minutes ago."

She chuckled and shot me an odd look. "She looks even better than last night. Why don't you stay and finish her? I can handle telling Gerald where to put stuff and we have enough people this time to get done what we need to today."

"It would be nice to check this off the list. Thanks."

"No problem, just seems silly when you're so close to take off and do something else."

She grabbed another cup of coffee and settled back in her chair. I'd been mulling something over for the last day or two and this seemed as good as time as any to bring it up. "I know it's kind of short notice but would you be cool with having some people over when Sam's here?" Coyote and I are both kind of territorial about our place. Sam's family and Roy had pretty much become a second brother but what I was planning would be a bit different. There's no hotels near the Reservation so anyone who came over for an extended stay would need a place to crash.

One of her eyebrows went up, "You're really going all out on this aren't you?"

"Yeah, if you're all right with it. It'd probably just be for two days."

"Oliver's crew?"

"That's the plan."

"Sure, it'll be nice to see Felicity again."

We'd road tripped out to Starling once. My descriptions of the Lake House had intrigued her so for her birthday I took her out there and we hung out for a week. She met everyone and we all got along well enough. Her and Felicity bonded pretty fast which had kind of surprised me. The two of them still texted or chatted online at least once a week.

"Thanks."

"Guess it's a good thing we built that spare room."

"Told you it'd come in handy." The third time Sam had stayed for a week he and I came to the conclusion that it was kind of ridiculous for him to sleep on the couch all the time. We both respected Coyote's need to have the second bedroom as her Sacred Space so the next time he came out the three of us and a few neighbors added on another room. It had a king size bed, a pullout couch, a desk, minifridge, a bathroom and seperate entrance in case he ever rolled up super late or early. It'd make things a little less cramped if the entire group showed up.

"You find out how many of them are coming then we'll hit the store tomorrow to stock up " she said, "We'll need enough food to feed a small army, not to mention the alcohol requirements."

"No doubt, we drink enough just out of habit. Give us an actual reason to drink and things are liable to get much worse."

"This I got to see. I've never seen you actually drunk."

"Not sure I can still get falling down dumb ass drunk but I'll take that as a challenge. It's technically a party after all, that's usually what people do."

The smile on her face faded a bit, "Hopefully none of you are depressing drunks, that could get a bit challenging."

"Good point." I gave her a quick kiss before I headed back out to the garage. "Thanks again for letting me get this done today."

"No problem. I'll work on this a bit longer and head out. I'll let you know when I leave."

"Got it."

It'd probably be too early to call Oliver so I spent another hour or so on the paint, Coyote flicked the garage lights to get my attention since the compressor was on and it was hard to hear. I turned around, she was in her construction site clothes. Old ripped up jeans, a long sleeve shirt, boots and her hair was in it's usual braid. I waved back, she nodded and left. I decided it was time to take an actual break. The easy part of painting was done, spraying it on isn't too complicated after all. Now I had to go back through and touch everything up which takes a few hours usually, mainly because I'm a perfectionist when it comes to paint. I figured by now it wouldn't be too obnoxiously early to send Oliver a text telling him to call when he had the time. He and I had gotten a lot closer over the last year since Roy and Sam were hunting together. Both of us worried about them and tended to keep each other updated on what they were doing when they were out on a job. Sam tended to check in more with me than Roy did with Oliver but he did stay in pretty close contact with Thea so one way or another we kept pretty good tabs on them. If all else failed we knew we could always have Felicity track them down if things got bad.

I was just getting ready to head back out to start painting again when my phone rang, "Hey."

"Hey," he replied. "What's up?"

"You guys have anything planned for next Wednesday and Thursday?"

There was a brief pause, "Let me check the Criminals of Starling City Google calendar and see what they've penciled in."

Oliver may not have a huge sense of humor but he can do some pretty mean sarcasm when given the opportunity. "Ha ha. I meant Felicity and her work, Thea taking any trips, you know, life stuff."

"Not that I'm aware of. Why?"

"Sam's birthday is Wednesday, I've got something for him but I was thinking it might be kind of fun to make a thing out of it. So if you guys are available maybe you could come out here. We've got enough space for everyone to crash a night."

"Is this something that you don't want Sam to know about?"

"Pretty much."

"I know Felicity can make herself available, Lyla may not be able to but Dig and Thea and I should all be able to make it. I'll check with Thea in case she's got something going at the club. I'd imagine once we tell Roy he'd just stick with Sam since they're on a job."

"Cool. Well let me know what they say and when you think you'll get here. We may need Felicity to keep closer tabs on them starting Monday and see when he heads this way so he doesn't get here before you guys do. The original plan was for him to show up Wednesday afternoon if the job runs smooth. Course that could all change but they've gotten pretty efficient lately. He texted me yesterday and said they'd narrowed down where the nest could be so they should clean it out within the next day or two."

"Good. I'll get a handle on what everyone is up to and text you the head count."

"Sounds good."

"Dean..."

"Yeah." His voice had gone from all business to a bit more human. Oliver's still a lot more compartmentalized than I ever was. That cold part, the Arrow part, always seemed to be his default mode.

"Thanks for the invite. I know you and Sam usually don't do things like this and it's been years since I've been to a party of any kind. Felicity keeps trying to get me to go out, have some fun and relax but.."

"Dropping your guard in public isn't your thing."

"Exactly."

"Coyote and I are going to go acquire obscene amounts of alcohol so if you want to try to relive your playboy days go for it."

"Well, not sure that would be the best idea but I'll see what I can do."

"Baby steps Oliver."

He laughed, "Got it. Will text you later."

"Sure." We hung up and I got back to work.

Thirty minutes later I got a text from Oliver, "Everyone but Lyla. She's going to stay home and watch Sara. I told Roy, he knows to keep it under wraps. We'll take a later flight out Tuesday, rent a hotel Tuesday night and head towards your place first thing in the morning. We should be there by noon."

"Perfect." I sent back. As soon as I set my phone back down an image of Oliver scowling in a party hat popped in my head. Party hats were now a requirement, I'd get one on his head even if it required Sam and I pinning him down so Dig could put it on.


	4. Let The Festivities Commence

"On the way, see you around one." Sam's text woke me up. Coyote and I had stayed up late the night before getting things ready. Oliver and the rest had flown in to Denver late Tuesday and were hopping a flight to a small airport in Nebraska which was about a two hour drive away. They were planning to get in around eleven. Roy had had to find ways to stall Sam since they'd finished off the vamps a lot sooner than we'd thought they would. He'd actually ended up finding another job for them to take on which had surprised Sam since they'd already been on the road for three weeks. Roy's excuse was, "Well, it's not too far. May as well get it out of the way." It'd been risky since jobs can go sideways fast but it'd worked out.

"Got it, see you soon." I sent back then rolled out of bed. Coyote had been giving me good- natured crap all week about how into this whole thing I was getting. Since she'd said she was on board with having everyone over I'd dove headlong into it. I'd told her this was sort of my way of repaying Sam for the last minute, impromptu Christmas thing he'd thrown together before I went to Hell among other things. We'd ended up moving to another room that night because the combined smell of his air freshener tree decorations gave us headaches but it didn't matter. Never having a real home was always the worst around the holidays. Dad had tried to do what he could when we were kids but there's only so much you can do in a motel room. Bobby'd thrown some parties for us but in general holidays and birthdays were something normal people did, not us.

When we took our month off at Oliver's place he'd told me about Amelia getting him a cake for his birthday and how much it'd meant to him, even though he was totally confused at first as to what she was doing. Both of us tend to forget when our birthdays are. We'd done Christmas at the Bunker over the last few years, it was usually just him and I though. Cas had come by one year but he didn't really understand the point of the holiday, Jesus had been born in the spring after all.

There was a lot of reasons that going all out on this felt right but the one that kept running around in my head the most was probably the cheesiest but it was also the most important. I could still remember what it was like to have a big, happy family holiday, barely, but I could. Sam didn't have that and that needed to change. Being with Coyote gave me something I hadn't had in years, or maybe ever; hope and actual happiness. I'd managed to work my way through the things that finding out what Azazel had done to me had brought up and in a lot of ways forgiven myself for things I never should have felt bad for in the first place. The only reason I'd ever had the chance to do that was because Sam refused to give up on me, seeing as how it was one of the most important things in my life I wanted to say thanks in the most over the top way possible.

So sure, the living room was horribly, almost painfully over decorated for this but I didn't care. Coyote had drawn the line at decorating with anything that had glitter though, that shit gets everywhere and never really goes away apparently, but other than that she'd given me free rein. It looked like the birthday section of a craft store had been dropped off by a tornado, I had crap hanging from everywhere but the look on Sam's face was going to be worth every bit of it.

Coyote and I had grabbed tons of food so I headed down to the kitchen to start prepping what we couldn't prep the day before. She wasn't too far behind me, she was about as excited as I was for this to get going. I'd never understood why people who do these things are so wiped out the next day, at least until now.

"If they don't eat every last scrap of this food I'm going to be pissed," I said.

"There's always left overs, part of the fun. You end up with food for a week, which is good because you're sick of cooking after you get all this done."

"I can see that." I looked at my watch, "Are we going to get all this done before they get here?"

She finished slicing the vegetables she was working on and set that bowl aside, "That, my dear, is why you provide snacks. They can snack while the rest of this is getting done."

"Screw that, they all know how to cook. Their asses are pitching in when they get here. The only one who gets a pass is Sam."

"Such a gracious host you are."

My eyes were tearing up from the onions she'd started cutting, I hate that. "I bought food and alcohol, that's gracious enough."

"Right, so event planning is definitely not a career option for you."

"Hell no, this is way too much work to eat and get drunk."

She stopped slicing, looked at me, shook her head and rolled her eyes with a rather large smirk on her face. "Just remember, this was your idea."

"Yeah, yeah."

Coyote was going all Martha Stewart on arranging all the snack food, which I thought was downright pointless. I was trying to figure out a way to get out of helping when there was a knock at the door. "Awesome! They're early."

She glared, "Slacker."

I gave her a huge smile and walked to the door, "Can't keep them waiting can I? Wouldn't be very gracious of me now would it."

"Bite me."

"Later. Promise." I pulled the door open and Felicity about knocked me over when she hugged me.

"Hi! This is going to be such a blast! I haven't gone to a surprise party in years! We brought presents. Do you need help?" She let me go and looked around me, "Hi Coyote! I love your house! It's beautiful! Ooh you got party hats! Oliver has to wear one, like now!"

She rushed past me and hugged Coyote, I looked back at Oliver, Dig and Thea who were all wearing huge smiles, "She's a bit excited," Oliver rather needlessly stated.

"Ya think? Wow. How much coffee did she drink this morning?"

"None actually." He gave me a quick hug, Dig and Thea followed suit and they walked in.

"She must store caffeine, like a camel," I suggested. "Well, welcome to our place. Drinks are in the fridge and ice chests and help yourself to food. Thanks for making the trip."

"Our pleasure," Oliver replied. "Roy texted, said they were about an hour out. He figured you guys would be busy getting ready so might miss his text so sent it to me instead."

"Perfect. Everything's pretty much set." Oliver was in jeans and a v-neck black t-shirt, Dig was wearing those linen pants you take to the beach and a loose fitting white button up shirt. Felicity was in a knee length flowy flowery skirt and white blouse and Thea, as usual, looked like a model for a high fashion store. She was wearing this purple and white checkered shirt/shorts outfit which she could probably wear for a business meeting just as easily as a party. All she'd need to do was take the sandals off and put on heels.

Coyote gave everyone hugs, looked down at her clothes and smiled. She was in an old tank top and shorts. "Well I feel under dressed. Guess I should go change. You too Babe, I didn't buy those slacks to provide decoration for your closet."

"I know. You guys settle in, be back in a few."

We went upstairs, Coyote decided to take a quick shower, I just did the guy sink bath thing. Towel, soap, get your pits and face, dry off and thrown on some deodorant. I mainly just needed to get the smell of all the crap I'd been chopping and dicing off my hands. She'd bought me a pair of dark green slacks and a black button up shirt and informed me that come hell or high water I'd be in something other than sweats or jeans for this thing. I didn't argue the point since she'd been more than willing to let me go nuts with planning this party. I took a quick look in the bathroom mirror after I got dressed, "Hmm, not half bad. May have to get a few more sets of nice clothes."

"Damn straight you will," Coyote agreed from the shower.

"You haven't even seen me wearing this yet."

"Don't have to, I know you look hot."

"Well then, feel free to shop for me more often."

"Planning on it. I'll be out soon. You should head down and mingle."

"All right." I started to walk out, "Hey, what are you wearing?"

"Sam's not the only one getting a surprise."

I was liking the sound of that, "Don't think lingerie is really appropriate for this kind of thing."

She turned the water off, reached out, grabbed her towel and threw it at me. "Mind out of the gutter for five seconds, seriously."

I tossed the towel back and laughed, "Sorry, years of watching porn, the word surprise has a very definite connection to lingerie in my mind."

"Sure, blame it on the porn. Move it, I've got to get dressed."

"Moving, moving." I headed back downstairs.

"Coyote has good taste," Thea said before I was even halfway down. "Never thought I'd see you in something that wasn't made of denim or flannel. You look good."

"Thanks." I grabbed a beer and some chips and sat down next to Dig. "Oh man, feels good to sit."

Oliver was sitting on the recliner across from me and Thea and Felicity were over by the table where the party hats and stuff was. Felicity had slipped off her shoes, grabbed a hat and made a bee line for the back of Oliver's head. I was pretty surprised how fast and quiet she moved, got it strapped around his chin and set on top of his head. He flinched but managed to keep himself from reacting to the sudden movement near him.

"Ha! Told you I could do it Thea."

He scowled but his eyes told a different story, they weren't cold or empty. He was letting his guard down already. He gave me a quick wink, blanked his face out so he looked more pissed than he really was and looked over his shoulder at Felicity. Thea busted out laughing and Felicity was in full giggle mode, "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes, yes it was," Felicity answered, "You're wearing that for at least two hours, time for you to lighten up."

He sighed and looked back at me, "They're awfully bossy aren't they?"

"Yeah, but they're cute so it's kind of worth it."

Dig nodded, "And sometimes they cook, that helps too."

Thea gave us the obligatory put upon woman sigh, "Let's see, all the men we're dating are in crazy good shape and taller than us. That should tell you guys why we keep you around."

"You have exacting standards and wouldn't dare be seen out in public with anyone else?" Oliver said.

Thea walked over and patted his shoulder, "That would work if we actually got to be seen out in public with you. Tall things and heavy objects brother dear." She gave him a smug look and walked to the other chair and sat down.

"You tried Oliver, you tried," I said.

Thea was still smiling when she looked up at the stairs and a rather appreciative look crossed her face.

"I don't keep Dean around for tall things," Coyote's voice floated down from the stairs. "But he does know how to fix cars so that helps."

I turned around and immediately wished it was just her and I in the room so I could put into action all the thoughts that slammed into my brain. I was pretty sure my jaw hit the floor. She was wearing this silver, slinky, knee length dress that was just this side of one night stand hot. It was sleeveless and looped up around her neck and had one of those keyhole openings in the front and hugged her curves in ways that made me want to run my hands all over her. Her hair was all the way down so it was brushing the top of her ass and she'd added some feathers in which always got me going. She had on some low heels that tightened her calves up just enough to show off her muscles. "Damn! I retract my prior comment as to the surprise, this is much better than that."

"Guess I clean up pretty good, " she said. The smile that was dancing around her lips made it pretty apparent that this is what she'd been excited about, not just the party.

"I'd say so."

"So would I," Felicity added. "Gorgeous dress!"

"Thanks." She'd made it down the stairs and was walking towards me.

I debated on not kissing her for half a second, didn't want to make things awkward for everyone else; but she'd picked out that dress knowing how hot it looked on her. I figured since she'd put in the effort I should reward it. "Apologies in advance guys." I reached out, grabbed her waist, pulled her down to my lap and showed her just what I thought of how she looked. I kept it decent but she got the idea.

She leaned back once I let her go, "Guess you like it."

"I'll give you a full report on just how much I like it later."

"Right then," Thea said a bit awkwardly, "Who needs a drink and how much longer till Roy gets here?"


	5. The Good Times Start to Roll

"There's a spare room out through that door there Thea," I pointed out, "Just in case."

"You two keep going on like that and we may have to take you up on that. He's been gone awhile."

"It isn't a party till people sneak off and have sex. At least that's how I remember it," I said as I shifted Coyote to the couch.

"I'm guessing you were the one they snuck off with?" Dig asked.

I shrugged, "Well, chicks do go for the "bad boys" for some reason. Who was I to disagree?"

Oliver nodded, "Can't say I see a problem with that."

Thea looked at Oliver, then me, then back at Oliver. "I just had a really disturbing thought. Can you imagine if you two had known each other back before the shipwreck? I mean, if Dean had traveled in our circles and not been a hunter. You two would have somehow managed to get into more trouble than you and Tommy did Oli."

I rolled that around in my head for a second or two, "I think I could handle being a billionaire playboy."

Oliver gave me the once over, "All you'd really need is a better wardrobe and a high end sports car."

"You seriously underestimate the sex appeal of muscle cars, Baby's always worked just fine for getting hook ups."

Dig laughed, "Gotta go with Dean on that one. Women lose it when they hear a V8."

"Hence why I drive one," Coyote said, "Screw waiting for a guy to show up. When I want to get my rocks off by driving fast I'll do it when I want to. No strings attached."

"Preach it sister," Thea declared.

"Damn straight!" Coyote replied.

I stood up, "Crap, I better start doing something useful before they decide they don't need us anymore. Guess I'll go grill up some overly complicated snacks that she picked out."

Dig and Oliver smiled and stood up, "We may as well join you," Dig added.

"Men burn food good, uggh!" Oliver grunted.

Coyote, Thea and Felicity cracked up laughing; Oliver, Dig and I grabbed the plates of snacks and some beers and headed outside.

"This is a gorgeous house," Dig said after he put the plate he was carrying on the table by the grill. "I've never even heard of a dome home till now, such a unique design."

"She built it. It comes in a kit. It's supposedly one of the more energy efficient and safest designs for a home. Took me a couple of months to get used to it though. Back when I was still a lot more paranoid it felt too open, no good places to take cover. Now that I'm more used to it regular houses feel cramped. Crazy what you can adapt to."

"True that. Seems like you've adapted to retired hunter life pretty well."

I hadn't seen Dig since Coyote and I had gone to Starling which was about eight months ago. I'd relaxed and changed a lot since then, sometimes it even surprised me how relaxed I was now. "I had a lot of help. It wasn't easy, I'll tell you that. Worth every minute though." I took a quick glance at Oliver and caught his eyes shifting to look at Felicity. I was pretty sure that me retiring had set some thoughts in motion inside his head but we'd never talked about it. We'd gotten closer but not that close. If he was going to have those conversations it'd be with either her or Dig, not me. Personally I didn't think he was ready to let go of his personal demons yet. He was trying, but I got the feeling that he still felt the debt he owed to people in his past was nowhere near paid off.

We shot the shit, delivered food inside and drank a few beers. I kept my eye on my watch and about fifteen minutes before Sam and Roy were due to show up we went back inside.

"So we going all out and shouting surprise or not?" Thea asked.

"Hang on," I shot a quick text to Roy, "How hard was the last hunt?"

"Not bad, he's pretty chill and has no clue what's going on." He replied.

"Yeah, let's go all out. Roy says the last hunt wasn't too rough so he's not on edge." It was things like that which had made this group feel like an extended family over the last year. Normal people would never think about someone reacting badly to something harmless like a shouted out surprise that was all in good fun. Every person here got Sam and I, understood us. Once we'd lost Bobby and the rest we'd pretty much been on our own, our tiny world kept getting smaller and smaller, which resulted in some pretty desperate decisions on both our parts. I'd noticed that since Sam and Roy had been hunting that Sam was less tense in some ways which I think was linked to the downtime and the fact that he had other people to talk to. No matter how much you love someone, being around them 24/7 in highly charged situations for years on end will wear on you.

I got closer to the window by the front door and pulled the curtain back just enough to see out. Baby rolled up and they got out. Roy, not being afraid of flying, would fly out to Kansas so Sam could pick him up when they went hunting. They grabbed their bags, Sam looked tired but not stressed, I looked back at everyone. They hadn't clustered around the door but were all standing where Sam could see them. Coyote, Thea and Felicity had pulled on party hats. Dig and Coyote both had their phones trained on the door, recording their entrance. I took a deep breath and hoped to hell I'd made the right call by doing this. Roy had drifted behind Sam as they walked up, I dropped the curtain so Sam wouldn't see me and waited.

The door opened and everyone yelled "SURPRISE!" Sam froze and dropped his bag. His hand stopped halfway through reaching for his gun.

"What the..." He was totally lost, his eyes jumped from person to person, then he started noticing the decorations and I saw the hunter side start dropping away. His face relaxed, so did his shoulders and he went from being startled to confused, then it started sinking in what was going on and he finally looked at me.

"Dean?"

"Happy birthday Sammy."

"What?"

Roy stepped up next to him and grabbed his bag, "Happy birthday Sam."

"I, uh...thanks? Dean? You decorated? You hate decorations."

"Made an exception."

He still hadn't moved although Roy had already walked past him and given Thea a hug. Sam looked around again, I guess he wasn't sure that all of this was actually happening. "Oliver's wearing a party hat."

"Felicity insisted," Oliver replied with a smile, "Happy birthday Sam."

Sam looked back at me and a grin finally started breaking out on his face, "You did all this? Planned it?"

"Yup. Mostly."

"Wow.." He finally moved and the next thing I knew he was crushing the air out of my lungs. "Thank you."

I wrapped my arms around him, I'd definitely made the right call. "You're welcome."

When he let me go his eyes reminded me of how a kid looks when they first walk into Disneyland, all wide eyed and excited, of course he wasn't that innocent anymore. There were a lot more things going on in his head than wanting to get to the roller coasters before anyone else did.

"Wow, just...I don't know what to say."

Coyote walked up and held him tight, "Then don't say anything, just have fun. Happy birthday." She kissed his cheek and he started laughing. At first it was that weird, stuttering sort of laugh you see on TV when people have made it through some crazy ass catastrophe and are just happy they're alive, then it became a lot more relaxed. He worked his way around the room, hugging everyone and finally made it into the house all the way.

I shut the door behind him and turned back towards the living room, Coyote was standing right in front of me and her eyes were tearing up. She gave me a hug and got right next to my ear, "Things like this are the reason I love you you know. You've just made his whole year."

"It's just nice to be able to do something we always wanted to growing up."

"We both know it's a lot more than that Babe." She gave me a quick kiss and walked away.

Sam was standing by the food, beer in hand, laughing at something Thea had said when he looked my way as I went to join them. He didn't need to say anything, how he looked right then and the slight nod of his head said everything for him.

"Since you're all old and shit now," I said, "I don't want to hear any more comments about my age. "

"Pssh, if I'm old, you must be on your deathbed then."

"Guess you don't really need to eat any of this food we're making huh."

"You're the one putting on weight, not me," he pointed out, "This whole retirement thing is making you flabby. I'll save you a few pounds, take the pie off your hands and bail."

"Who said there was pie?"

He just stared, "Really Dean? Really."

"Crap...fine. You're not old and I'm not out of shape. Truce?"

"Truce."

"Let's get this going," Coyote said, "Margaritas coming up."

"I'll do that, you get some food." Thea offered, "I know you guys have been working all morning."

"Thanks," Coyote replied.

"She's not doing that out of sheer generosity," Roy pointed out, "She just likes her drinks extra strong."

"So do you," Thea shot back, "And I'll make two versions, one not so strong so hush."

"Good, because I was planning the strip poker for much later tonight," I said. "And we need to be good and plastered for that to be fun."

"Fair warning to all of you," Sam said, "He's undefeated in strip poker so if you have any sense of dignity left, run now."

"What the hell Sam! I bend over backward putting this together and you go and ruin all my fun."

He laughed, Coyote on the other had a completely different reaction. "Undefeated huh?"

"Oh shit." She'd kicked my ass a few times in regular poker. "Right, so poker's off the roster of games for the night."

"Not at all," she replied, "I'm down for a game."

Thea had been watching the back and forth and took a long look at Roy, "So am I."

"Dean, hide the cards. Now." Roy said. "Thea's a pro."

Dig put his hands up, "I'm pulling the wife being pissed at me if she found out about this card and bowing out now."

"There's got to be some sort of crime around here I can go fight," Oliver said.

"You know, poker's really all about math," Felicity pointed out. "I'm pretty good at math."

Sam just winked at me, "Go for it Dean. You have a reputation to protect now."

"I need a shot of whiskey like now, or maybe fifteen."

"Good, get nice and drunk sweetheart," Coyote purred.

"Careful what you wish for darlin', I get better at poker the more I drink. Until I moved in here I don't think I ever played a game completely sober. You may want to get more layers on. What you're wearing now won't last you more than two hands."

"Big talk for someone who's down four games to me."

"Four?" Sam said. "Were you letting her win to get laid?"

I shrugged, "Maybe."

She narrowed her eyes, "Were you?"

"Dean, there's no safe answer to that question," Dig warned.

"Yeah, sort of seeing that. Good thing I've got to start cooking."


	6. Mustangs and Memories

I could have reminded Coyote that Sam and I had survived on our winnings from pool and poker hustling for years but why ruin the fun? She'd legitimately won a few times but I hadn't been being all that serious about it winning those games. If it came down to an actual game of strip poker where I wanted to win, everyone but Sam and I would be stark naked by the end of it. We'd worked out a system to kick serious ass in poker years ago. It very rarely failed.

About two hours later everyone had finished stuffing their faces and there was a rather large dent in pretty much everything we'd prepared. Which was good because Sam hadn't been wrong, I'd put on a pound or two since moving in with Coyote which was ironic since I was eating healthier. Course I wasn't getting into life or death situations every other day either. Everyone was sprawled out in the living room, nursing whatever drinks they had and groaning about how much they ate. Sam had been smiling and laughing the whole time, having a blast and was probably the most relaxed I'd seen him in years. I wanted to show him the car before the whole pie, cake and present thing started so he wouldn't get suspicious of me taking him to the garage. Coyote and I had quietly told the rest of the group what was happening so they didn't tag along when I took him out to look at it, that needed to be a he and I thing.

"Sam, I want to show you something I've been working on," I said when there was break in his and Dig's conversation.

"Sure."

We headed into the garage, I flicked on the light and let him get ahead of me so I could snag the keys for it off the pegboard I'd put up.

As soon as he saw her he whistled, "Damn, she's sweet. What year?"

"Sixty nine, brand new everything pretty much though. 350, V8, tricked out suspension, all that."

He lightly ran his hand along the roof and her lines as he walked around her. "Really? This for another hunter? Guess they've got some serious needs."

"Yeah, he was pretty specific," I popped open the trunk and opened the weapons box so he could see it and the Devil's trap painted on the trunk's lid. "It's kind of a shallow trunk though so I added another box under the back seats. It's got demon warding etched into the roof underneath the upholstery too."

He finished his slow walk around her, nodding the whole time. I could tell he liked what he saw. Who wouldn't?

"Whoever is getting this had better be paying you top dollar. You put a ton of work into this one. I thought the rebuild you did on Baby was the best thing I'd ever see you do. This almost tops it."

"Thanks. Actually I'm not making a penny off of her."

That got his attention off the car, "What? Why?"

"Because the guy who's getting her has saved my life more times than I can count, that's why." I tossed the keys to him, he just barely caught them before they hit the hood of the car, which was a good thing. If he'd let those keys scratch the paint I'd have had to hit him, which isn't very birthday party like.

Once he caught the keys he stepped back, probably because he'd seen the look on my face when I thought the keys were going to hit her. "She's for me?" I think this had floored him even more than the party itself.

"You're old enough to have your own wheels now. I ain't paying for any speeding tickets though."

"Dean, seriously. She's mine?"

"Yes Sam, I even had Felicity hack into the DMV and put your name on the title. At least for now. We can change it later if you want. Just wanted it to be official for a little while anyway."

"I, this whole day, now the car. Why?" He started looking worried, "I mean I'm damn grateful, really, but what's going on."

I sighed and leaned against the worktable, "It's kind of sad that our history is so screwy that a birthday party and a custom car makes us think someone's dying or in trouble."

The worry left his face, "Okay, so nothing bad brought this on?"

"No. I'm fine, so's Coyote. Promise."

Now he just looked confused.

"I remember, barely, but I do when Mom and Dad found out Mom was pregnant with you. A bunch of her friends came over for a baby shower, it was big party, everyone was having a blast. Then when they brought you home from the hospital people came over for days to congratulate them, help Mom out, all that. I remember getting some kick ass toys on my fourth birthday too. Then everything went to hell, and you never got to have any of that. Not once. Every party we had after Mom died, which wasn't that many, no matter how hard Dad or Bobby tried, Mom's death, Azazel, hunting all that got in the way."

I'd thought a lot about what I was going to say when I gave him the keys, trying to prep for all the stuff it would bring up but it still hit pretty hard. Both of us were choking up at this point.

"That Christmas before I went to Hell. I know that was the last thing you wanted to do, celebrate and try to be happy but you did it anyway. You've done that a lot over the years, try to find ways to be happy, have hope and a lot of times I shot you down for it. You never gave up though. Back then I wasn't able to really appreciate that. After I moved in here and finding out what Azazel did to me, I've been able to look at things a lot differently. I wanted to try to give you what you never got to have but kept fighting for. Give you what Dad couldn't, what I couldn't. Now I can, so I did."

He took a quick swipe at his eyes, he'd started tearing up a bit, then sniffed. "So many feels."

"What?"

He chuckled, "It's what the kids are saying these days. Since I'm all old and shit now I get to say stuff like, "it's what the kids are saying." "

"Oh, okay. Us mostly dead people are just completely lost with all that new slangy stuff."

We just stared at each other for a minute. "How about we take her out?" I suggested.

That got a huge smile on his face in no time flat, "Hell yeah!"

"You can plug your douchey Ipod in her too. She's got an aux jack."

"You mean I won't have to hit up thrift stores for tapes? Nice."

"Shut up."

I pulled my phone out and texted Coyote we'd be taking off for a few. She sent back "Have fun. We're too stuffed to eat dessert till tomorrow anyway. :) " I opened the garage door and got in the passenger seat, he slid into the other side, turned her on and revved the engine.

"Oh man."

"Nice, right?"

He laughed, "Oh yeah."

Her tires smoked and we shot out of there like a bat out of hell. "You fucking better not be driving Baby like this! Only I smoke her tires."

The look he gave me wasn't even a good fake innocent look, "Course not."

"Shit. Things I didn't need to know."

"Shut up and hang on."

We got some seriously jealous looks from the neighbors as we flew by on our way out of town. There's not a lot of curves on the main road out of the Reservation but I'd found one that had a few decent ones. You can't get a good feel on a car unless you put it through all it's paces. "Hey, about eight miles up, turn left." I told him, "Road with some decent curves."

"Got it."

He'd done some slight turns of the wheel left and right, she responded almost before you moved the wheel. I hadn't made it racing suspension tight but close enough.

"That's going to take a bit to get used to," he said, "She handles better than Baby."

"Yeah. I'll need to fix that, Baby's due for some upgrades.

He'd started getting over the shock of the car, I saw his brain kicking into gear. "Why'd you change your mind about not wanting her? That had to be part of this right?"

"I don't have a great answer for that. It's weird. The last time you came by and put it out there that I was done hunting I started missing her. Not the job, her. It's like as soon as I accepted I was done I wasn't so worried about her pulling me back in or something, sounds stupid I know."

"Not at all. I know she's part of the family but you're the one that's always fought to keep her together, pretty symbolic actually."

"Oh man, I can't get all sappy on your first ride in your new car," I was the one wiping my eyes now.

"Oh right, sorry. No chick flick moments."

"Exactly, two guys in a sweet ass car. No crying allowed. Turn left."

He slowed down, busted out laughing and turned.

"First two are pretty close to hairpin, the rest aren't too tight. Don't oversteer, I almost did when I first took her out."

"Got it."

He handled her like he'd been driving her for years. I knew they'd be a good fit. There's just some cars that you mesh with as soon as you get into them, there's no learning curve on the handling, nothing. You just know how they'll move. This was his. I'm sure that since he knew it was his he was a bit more relaxed. He'd always been careful with Baby, knowing what she meant to me. He'd take care of this one, but not because he was worried about hurting my feelings, but because he'd already fallen for her. I settled back in the seat and watched him really get into the curves.

"Something's wrong," he said as he got through the last corner and hit a straight away.

"What?"

"No tunes." He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. "Plug it into the jack."

"Okay. What do you want to listen to?"

He had this weird little grin on his face, "You'll know it when you see it."

I scrolled to his music and hit the button, it was the top list on the menu, "Good Times With Dean." I opened it up and it had just about every single song I'd played over and over for years. I didn't say a word, just dug out the aux cable from the glove box, plugged it in and hit play. Renegade by Styx kicked on and I had to laugh. "Wouldn't say that was a good time although we did pull one over on an entire FBI team."

"Exactly, good times."

"Yeah, good times."

We went a few more miles down the road, found a good place to turn around and headed back. We didn't say much, just enjoyed the drive. I had a lot of stuff going on inside my head, I'd been so focused on getting the car done and doing the party I hadn't really had a chance to think about anything else. Now that he had his own car and I had Baby back I could physcially see my life as a hunter actually ending. It wasn't just this random thought or wish. Sam was set, I was set and there wasn't anything calling me back to that life. I wasn't sure if I was happy or sad about it. Guess that's why they call shit like this bittersweet. Sam, as usual, caught the mood shift in the car. Hard not to I guess.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just.."

He was feeling the same thing it seemed, "I know. Dude, I'm happy for you, I am but I'm but not going to lie, I miss you out here sometimes."

"Same here. I don't miss the job, but it was never just about the job."

"Yeah."

We were pulling up to the house, he parked in front of Baby and I had an idea. "Hey, toss me Baby's keys real quick."

He chucked them at me, I caught them and pulled open the driver's side backseat door. It was still there, in the ashtray; the little green guy that I'd made a point to stick back in that damn ashtray every time Baby had been totaled and I'd fixed her. I was hoping he hadn't gone and glued it in or something. I reached in, pulled it out, shut the door and walked back to him.

"Here. You'll need to find a new place for him, no ashtrays in the backseat, sorry."

He took it then met my eyes and that did it. I held him as tight as I could, "Happy Birthday little brother." He didn't reply, but then he didn't need to. The strength of his hug said everything.


	7. Rounding Out the Night

We let go and walked back to the house, arms around each other's shoulders. He stopped right before we opened the door. "I've got something to show off now. Weird."

"Go for it. Most of the hunters I sell cars to just get in them and go. Be nice to see someone appreciate a car for once."

He pulled open the door, "Guys! You have to come see this!"

Everyone acted surprised enough, I think Dig was the most excited of the bunch though. He loves muscle cars as much as I do. When I'd told him about it earlier he about ruined the whole thing. He wasn't more than fifteen feet away from Sam and came damn close to begging me to show it to him.

He was the first one out the door. "Aww man! She's hot!" Yup, he'd have to drive it at some point. "What's she running? Dude, love the paint job."

Sam sent a quick look my way, wondering if I wanted to rattle off the specs but I just took a step back and let him go for it. It was his, he could bask in the glory for once.

"350, V8,.." He and Dig bee lined right back to her talking car the whole time and the rest trailed behind them, totally caught up in the moment.

Coyote's arm went around my waist, "He's acting like a teenager. It's cute."

"Well, he didn't get to do it then, better late than never."

She gave me a pretty piercing look, "He understood? About you wanting Baby back?"

"He did. He was good with it."

"And you? You good with this?"

"Yeah, actually I am." Since everyone else was preoccupied with the car I took advantage of the moment and gave her a pretty serious kiss. "I'm more than good with this."

She ran her hand along my cheek, "I can see that." She looked back towards the group and cracked up, "Now they're all acting like teenagers."

"Oh hell." The Mustang seats five people, with Sam there were six people that wanted a ride.

"Boys in the back, I'll sit on Felicity's lap," Thea declared.

"Great, that means I get smushed in the middle of the back seat. I hate being the smallest guy in this group sometimes."

"I have absolutely no problems with this plan Thea," Sam stated, "Legs for days next to me while I drive, I can handle that."

"Not saving you Sam, not this time," I shouted as Oliver and Roy gave him rather unfriendly looks.

Felicity huffed, "Get over it you two. Thea could break his hand if he tried anything. Not like he would. Let's go. In the back, go already."

The guys grumbled and growled but they finally crawled into the backseat, sure enough Roy was in the middle. Felicity got in and Thea settled in on her lap and closed the door. Coyote was right, Sam looked like he was sixteen and ditching school with his friends.

"Don't do anything," I started to tell him, "Never mind, not much I wouldn't do or haven't done. Have fun."

He got in the driver's seat, rolled down the window, cranked up the tunes, gave me this shit eating trouble making grin and pulled out.

I turned and looked at Coyote, the light from the house was doing a damn good job framing her. "You know, the kids are all gone. Be at least a half an hour. What do you say?"

She grabbed me, shoved me back inside and shut the door. "Let's not waste time then."

She barely beat me up the stairs, I slammed the bedroom door, she started to unhook her dress.

"Stop." I pulled her hands away and ran mine down her sides. "I've seen you naked," I nipped at her shoulder, she moaned, "Seen you in lingerie," the next kiss was on her neck, "Never seen you in a dress." My lips landed right in the center of that keyhole opening, "It stays on." I ran my hands up under the dress, yanked off her underwear and pushed her down on the bed. She was already breathing hard, we'd been eyeing each other all night. It's not often I have to wait hours to get with a girl, especially one that gets me going as much as she does. Never been big on the whole anticipation thing, but I was starting to change my opinion on that. It was however a new experience getting out of a button up shirt fast without shredding it. Turns out all you have to do is undo the top few buttons and it slides right off. After I got that off things got interesting fast. Sam wasn't the only one feeling like a teenager getting away with something. Her giggling in between panting and digging her nails into my back somehow made things even more intense than usual. I couldn't help it, I started laughing too.

"This is ridiculous," she moaned/giggled.

"Fun though. Parties needed more often I think." I shifted and hit the right spots, the giggling stopped and the nails dug deeper.

Once she'd calmed down from that move she was caught able to start breathing again, "Never liked dresses, always thought they were too confining. Didn't realize how that could make this more interesting."

Her muscles clenched, I lost it. It was a damn good thing I'd gotten that shirt off because I was covered in sweat. Hopefully her dress wouldn't show it because I wanted to watch her in it the rest of the night knowing we'd just had some crazy ass sex. Tonight was definitely going to call for a round two. Her window was open and I heard the car pull up.

"Kids are home," she said while shifting her hips.

"Don't even start that, save it for later."

"Sure about that?" She purred.

"I, uh," The front door opened, "Damn it."

I slid off the bed and she had the nerve to pout at me for it. "Spoilsport."

"Temptress. Move." I grabbed a towel, wiped off, got dressed fast and ran downstairs.

Fortunately they were all babbling about the car as they walked so hadn't noticed I wasn't in the living room waiting for them.

"That's it," Dig announced, "How much will it cost me to get you to build me one Dean? I'm serious."

I thought I was in the clear until Sam walked in from the kitchen with a few beers in his hand, "Have fun did you Dean?" He asked with a wink as he handed me one.

I ignored the question, "Depends on what you want Dig."

Oliver, however, didn't, "Where's Coyote?"

She picked that exact moment to appear at the top of the stairs and Oliver was facing that direction. I hadn't blushed in years but when both he and Sam looked from me to her and back with smirks on their faces I couldn't help it. "I have some good guys I buy from that give me discounts on parts." I kept going, trying to save myself.

Coyote came up next to me, she looked just like she had when they'd left right until she brushed some hair away from her neck. She's dark skinned but apparently I'd gotten carried away, there was a bruise forming right on her neck and I was surrounded by people who have very good eyes for detail. I was pretty sure she hadn't done it on purpose but it didn't take long for the looks to start. They didn't say anything at first, but man was it awkward. She picked up on it and nonchalantly turned to look at the mirror that was over the couch, spotted the bruise and pulled her hair back over it but it was too late.

Sam, of course, just had to say something, "Yeah, they're pretty good at getting things done in a hurry. Especially when he's working on something hot."

I shoved back the first five things to say that came to mind. "What make and model would you want?"

Dig tried to help me, he really did, "I'd love an old Hemi Cuda."

"Nice, they're kind of hard to find though."

"I've heard they've got some serious bite to them," Oliver added.

"Yeah, a lot of power too." Roy chimed in, "You stop fast in that thing and you'd be bruised for sure."

Sam snorted back a laugh and Thea and Felicity's shoulders were shaking.

Then Coyote jumped in, "He's hot as hell, this dress looks damn good on me, you were gone, so we had sex. Anyone have a problem with that?"

God I love her!

"Nope," Sam said.

Oliver raised his hands, "No, not at all."

Thea and Felicity's mouths dropped open for a second and Roy just shut his trap.

"Good," she continued, "Dessert?" She strutted away towards the kitchen with a whole lot of extra sway in her hips.

Dig watched her the whole way, "Now that's a kick ass woman. I see why you retired."

"Wouldn't trade her for the world."

She started pulling pies from the fridge. "Love you too Babe. Now get over here and help cut these pies."

"Yes ma'am."


	8. The Morning After

We'd stayed up way too late but it was worth it. They got themselves all sorted out sleeping arrangement wise and Coyote and I were too tired to go for round two. Along with the car Sam had scored some pretty cool presents from the others. Felicity and Oliver, well mainly Felicity, had given him a top of the line, custom designed laptop with fingerprint locks and all of her latest hacker tricks loaded up. I was starting to wonder if he was planning to take down governments when she listed off everything she had on it. That wasn't all though. She'd taken all the scanned books and documents from the Men of Letters files he'd scanned in and put them on all some super secure server so he and I could access them from anywhere. He could also upload them to the server as he went along. Eventually the entire Men of Letters library would be on two servers, one that was hooked up to the internet and one that was in storage off site. There was no way any of that knowledge would be lost now.

"I know you're not hunting anymore Dean," she'd said, "But you are a Legacy after all and if for some reason Sam loses that laptop or it gets damaged while he's on the road you can help him until he gets a new one."

Both of us were pretty happy about that. Roy wasn't that interested in delving into the lore and I had kind of missed research, not that I'd ever say that out loud. There's always been this deep sense of satisfaction that comes with cracking a mystery using ancient lore.

Thea and Roy had got him a bunch of new clothes. I hadn't realized how much stuff you could pack into a few boxes until he started working his way through them. Coyote had said she'd have to take folding lessons from Thea for the next time we went on a trip.

I thought Dig and Lyla's gift was the coolest though. When Sam goes to Starling he stays with them and I guess Lyla's cooked a lot of awesome meals for him. She'd written out all her recipes that she'd cooked so far and given him two versions, one for three or four people and one for just one serving so he could make enough just for a meal when he was at home. The book she'd put them all in had plenty of room to add more so he could keep collecting hers or add his own when he wanted to. When he'd realized what it was he was so touched by it he called Lyla to thank her.

Coyote took on making breakfast for everyone, told me I could sleep in since I'd been busting ass for the last month with the car. I tried but once I heard people start talking and smelled food I couldn't get back to sleep. I did take my time getting out of bed though. The way the acoustics of that house work I didn't have to be in the same room to hear the conversations. Roy and Thea were chatting about what they wanted to do when they got back home. Sounded like they were going to be heading out of state for some couples R and R time. That was one thing that never failed to impress me with Roy, how he could separate out what he did from who he was. He hadn't let hunting or the vigilante gig warp him like it had Oliver and I. Maybe it's because we were warped before we started and the gigs were our way of dealing with it. Course Sam had been like that too, but not as much as Roy was. Probably helped that Thea was in on the life and it's secrets, he didn't have to hide what he did. It wasn't just that though, I hadn't seen any sign of that darkness that even Sam had in Roy. From what Sam said, Roy stayed objective about the job, monsters had to be stopped. He didn't get emotional about it, didn't get pulled down by what he did. He was proud of what they were doing and it didn't weigh on him. I don't think I'd ever been able to pull that off. Dig's voice joined in and a few minutes later I heard Oliver and Felicity say something, since everyone else was up and about I figured it was about time for me to get off my lazy ass and get moving.

After I got all cleaned up and back in my comfy jeans and flannel, just to mess with Thea, I headed down to grab some grub and coffee.

As soon as Thea saw me she sighed, "Couldn't last forever I guess. I think I'm going to start sending clothing care packages to you Dean. Your wardrobe needs a serious overhaul."

"Hey, Coyote is just as bad."

"I've got her measurements in my head, don't worry about her."

Coyote rolled her eyes, "I am not adding closets Thea. I appreciate the offer but I don't really have that much use for dresses out here."

"Now hold up sweetheart, I'm sure we could find out something to do that you could get all dressed up for."

She gave me a pretty interesting look, "You mean you'd actually let me get out the door looking like that? Or would whatever we'd be doing be in house."

Everyone looked at me, smirks and suggestive stares abounded, "Don't most high end dinners have like four courses? I'm all down for adding another few more to the list, pre-dinner and post-dessert festivities. We'd get out of the house eventually. I'd get hungry at some point."

Dig and Oliver did this long slow clap, "Well done Dean, well done," Dig said.

"I'm learnin', I'm learnin'." We all got down to eating breakfast after that.

Everyone but Sam got ready to go by about noon. They had planes to catch, Oliver waited until everyone else had walked out before saying goodbye. He took a long, hard look at the house, the decorations and then finally looked at me.

"Thinking you want to do this back home sometime?" I asked. "Coyote and I would love to see you guys sooner rather than later."

"Remember after we killed those demons and you told me we all had scars? That they reminded us of what the cost was for doing what we do, that they meant we hadn't failed. You said we can't save everyone no matter how hard we try."

"Yeah."

"I think I should start worrying less about who I haven't saved and more about who I have, stop getting scars and start taking some time to heal."

"Might not be a bad idea."

He smiled, and it had a lot more behind it than any I'd ever seen on his face before. "Thank you Dean."

"No problem, brother." He wrapped his arms around me and it wasn't the usual quick guy hug, he was letting himself open up to the possibility of having a real life with Felicity and have emotions again. When he let me go the Arrow side didn't come right back into play like it usually did when he was going back out into the world again. Instead he stayed relaxed.

He gave Sam and Coyote hugs, "See you soon."

"I'm holding you to that," I told him.

"Deal," the smile never left his face as he turned and walked out the door.

"I never expected that," Sam said, "Looks like retirement's contagious."

"He's not anywhere close to that point yet, but at least he's letting himself feel something again. It's a start."

"Yeah."

I took a look around, "Guess I should start taking all this stuff down. What's next on your agenda?"

"Figured I could stay and help clean up at least. Been on the road a few weeks, could use some time off of it. If you guys don't mind that is."

"Not at all," Coyote answered.

"Thanks." He cleared the dishes off the table and took them to the sink. I wasn't quite ready to tackle the decorations and I had something more important to do. I grabbed Baby's keys off the table next to the door, went outside, opened the garage door and walked down the driveway. My hands glided along her lines as I walked to the driver's side door, "Hey Baby, hope you're not too mad at me for letting Sam keep you for a while. I had to get some things straight in my head, needed a break. Missed you though."

It felt good to be sit in her again, she started right up and I just listened to her for a minute. He'd kept her in good shape but I could tell she needed a bit of tuning up. I put her in gear and pulled her into the garage. "Welcome home Baby, time for you to take a vacation. I'll tune you up tomorrow, been working on that Mustang for over a month. She's hot, no doubt, but not nearly as hot as you are." I turned her off, got out, patted her hood and went back inside.

Coyote greeted me with a smile, "Baby all tucked in?"

"Yup, safe and sound."

"Good. I kind of missed her too."

She's not a complete car nut but she'd always had definite opinions on what a car should be which usually coincided with mine. Sam was up on a foot stool pulling down some streamers, I was trying to get used to the sight of him needing something to make him taller when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number.

"Hello?"

"Hi Dean? It's Krissy, Krissy Chambers."

"Krissy?" Sam turned around when he heard the name, "What's up? Haven't talked to you for a few months."

"Um, try a year and a half."

"That's a few. What do you need?"

"I need your help with something. I know you're retired, Sam told me about six months ago, it's not a hunt. Well not really. It's a kid, a kid I can't help."

Sam, I and Garth had kept an eye on her until she'd hit eighteen, then she went to college for some psych or social work degree or something like that with the intent on helping other hunter's kids that last their parents or kids that lost their parents because of a monster. She'd managed to foster a lot of them and transition them to other families somehow. Her and I still talked about once or twice a year, I felt some sort of responsibility to her after showing her the truth about Victor. As far as I knew she'd been pretty successful with getting kids straightened out, so I had no idea why she was calling me.

"Not sure how I can help a kid out. Don't have much experience with that."

"I heard stories about things that have happened to you and Sam over the years, Sam sort of confirmed them last time we talked. He didn't mean to, I think he was tired and slipped up. This kid, Jacob, a cursed item took him over and made him kill."

That sent a chill down my spine.

"It's a pretty long story, we've got the object out of his hands but he's not really coming around. He hasn't really spoken or slept since then. I don't know what to do."

"Who'd he kill and how long has it been?"

Coyote and Sam both stared at me.

"His family and a month."

Goddamnit.


	9. At What Cost

This was not what I wanted or needed right now, "Hang on a second. I need to talk to someone."

"Okay," she replied. I muted the phone.

"What's going on?" Coyote asked, she's was keeping her face pretty neutral but she was worried.

"Short version, Krissy's someone Sam and I helped out years ago, hunter's kid. Hunter got in a mess, we got him out of it. They retired, vamp took him out a few years later, she was sixteen when that happened. She got tangled up with another retired hunter who'd teamed up with a vamp to kill parents of kids who he thought would make great hunters, then took them in to train them. Anyway, Sam and I put an end to that and kept an eye on her over the years. She's made a life out of helping hunter kids who lose their parents and kids who've had their lives destroyed by monsters. She has a kid that got a hold of a cursed object somehow, it took him over, made him kill his family. Object's not in the picture anymore but the kid isn't recovering, he's barely sleeping or talking I guess. She thinks with mine and Sam's history, which I'm not sure how she found out about," I sent Sam a pretty serious glare, "We can help out. Any idea how she knows about our history other than random rumors Sam?"

He looked kind of offended by the question, it took a minute but he remembered something. "Oh, um, yeah. She'd been dealing with a kid who's parents got possessed by a demon, I was wiped out from a hunt and kind of drunk. I started describing what the parents would have felt, seen and heard. I got pretty detailed. Sorry."

"Great."

Coyote had grown less worried and a bit more curious, "What does she expect you to do?"

"Not sure. Not even sure I want to know. Do you want me to put her on speaker and hear her out or just tell her not interested? I can hand her off to Sam, he's been possessed often enough, I don't need to be involved."

"Uh Dean?" Sam said, "I'm not that great with kids."

"Maybe you should learn," He winced, that had come out with a lot more force than I'd planned. I didn't want this, I was done. Someone else who'd had a fucked up life could deal with it.

"Babe, if it's upsetting you this much already, tell her no."

I wanted to, trust me, but if Krissy couldn't handle it she may have to send him to some psychiatric facility, they wouldn't believe a word he'd say and just drug him up, or worse, he'd end up in prison since he'd killed his family and he'd spend the rest of his life either drugged up, behind bars or both. The kid didn't deserve that. I knew what being possessed or influenced like that does to a person, not many other people do.

"Dean?" Sam asked.

"Let's hear her out, if you two are okay with that." I was more worried about what Coyote would think than Sam. She didn't say no, didn't say yes either, she left it up to me.

I took the phone of mute, "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"I'm putting you on speaker Sam's here, so's my girlfriend Coyote. She used to be a hunter, I live with her, have for the last year. Understand?"

There was a slight pause, "Yes." I could tell by her tone that she got what I hadn't said. That this wasn't just about me and what I wanted.

I pushed the speaker button, "Start at the top."

"Sure. Hi Sam and Coyote."

"Hi Krissy," they replied.

"I'll start with the cursed object, then tell you guys about Jacob, okay?"

"Fine," I answered.

"Clive, hunter I know, had a storage unit that got wiped out in a flood about a year ago and the door got warped and bent. By the time management had called to let him know a lot of stuff had gotten damaged or sucked out by the water. He had a lot of curse boxes in there. Some went missing, this was one of them."

As much as I wanted to be pissed that someone was storing shit like this in a storage unit I couldn't be, Dad had done the same thing. Not everyone had access to a warded, hidden building like the Bunker. Shit happens.

"This was a blade, turns out it was a blade used in old Zapotec rituals."

"Zapo-who?"

"They were Mesoamerican," Coyote said, "Like the Mayans and Aztecs."

"Oh, okay. Got it, go on."

"Anyway supposedly the blade was a direct link to one of their Gods and when the priests held it during the full moon ritual they went into some sort of religious ecstasy, then sacrificed whoever was put in front of them."

"And the kid knew the ritual somehow?" I asked

"Let me finish," she said. "Clive has been trying to track down all the objects he lost. He got most of them, but there'd been no sign of the blade. Then a few bodies that were killed in a pretty specific manner popped up but by the time he'd gotten there the people were arrested but there was no sign of the blade. The people barely remembered the blade, they were too in shock from waking up from the spell and standing over butchered loved ones that they sort of remembered killing. He thought he'd made a mistake then a few months later more bodies butchered in the same manner showed up. He got lucky that time, found some security vid of a guy who was carrying the curse box into the houses the leaving. Same guy showed up a few days later after the killings and took the box with him. Clive put out a hunter APB on the guy and the box, got a call a from a hunter who'd spotted him at a coffee shop in Jacob's town. By the time Clive got there it was too late to stop Jacob but he got the box and the blade back. Clive grabbed Jacob and brought him to me. He and a few other hunters took care of the guy that was playing delivery guy for the blade. I don't know his story, don't care. Just glad he's dead. Jacob was pretty much catatonic when he showed up. He started getting better the first week and then stopped improving. I don't know how to get through to him. I'm hoping maybe you guys can."

By the time she finished it'd all started coming back, how much I hated monsters, cursed objects and the supernatural assholes that kill people for no reason. I hated the pain they caused, the enjoyment they got from it but what I hated the most was how it never seemed to end no matter how many we took out and how utterly pointless it all felt.

Coyote's hand took hold of mine and squeezed it tight, "How old is Jacob?" She asked.

"Ten."

"Son of a bitch!" I walked away I had to.

Sam took over, "First off, tell Clive to call me. I'll arrange a meet and take all those cursed objects off his hands. I have a safe place to store them. It's an underground vault, it will take a lot more than a flood to get to them. Second, spread the word to any other hunter that has stuff like that to get in touch. Third, how sure are you that whatever took over Jacob is really gone?"

"Clive says the lore on this is that after the sacrifice is complete, the ecstasy leaves the priest until he picks up the blade again on the next full moon. Jacob hasn't done anything violent and we just had another lunar cycle last week. He's not trying to escape or find the blade, he just sits in his room and stares at the wall. When he's not staring, he's crying and begging for forgiveness. Sometimes he seems to be coherent enough to talk but it's very rare. He does take care of himself and he'll eat if you make him but he won't ask for food. He has nightmares every time he dozes off."

"Krissy," Coyote spoke up, as Krissy had listed Jacob's symptoms I could see the Shaman side come out. Shaman's deal with spirits and his sounded pretty trashed. "I'm a Lakota Sioux Shaman. I may be able to help along with Dean or Sam but we need to discuss a great many things before we decide what to do. I know you're aware of the responsibility you are asking to us to take on. You may not be aware of this but Dean retired for a specific reason, this will not be easy for him to deal with if he agrees to it."

"I understand, I wouldn't have called unless I was out of options. Coyote, the system won't help Jacob, I don't want to send him away to be drugged up and caged somewhere."

She stopped short of begging, which I'd have to thank her for some way or other.

"We understand," Coyote continued. "We will call you back by the end of the day."

"Thank you." She hung up.

I'd learned over the last year that when Coyote shifted into those speech patterns to sit up and listen to what she was about to say. It usually meant that either her guides were talking to her, she just had a vision or at the very least was speaking as Running Coyote the Shaman, not Coyote my lover. There were some very sharp differences between the two and Shaman Running Coyote was not to be screwed with, not at all. Sam hadn't seen her like this very often but he'd seen it enough to know to wait things out as well.

"Dean, I can help Jacob's Spirit to some extent. I am fairly sure I can get him to start communicating again at the very least. That can be accomplished without your presence. Helping him understand what he has gone through and how to deal with it is something else entirely. That would require someone that has gone through this, Sam at least would be needed for this. I don't know anyone else that's been possessed and it sounds like Krissy doesn't either. I'm willing to go and I know Sam would too, you can stay here.'

"Can or should?" She was saying can but her tone sounded a lot more like should.

Her jaw tightened, "Should. This will not help you keep healing from the past."

"How bad do I look to you Coyote?"

"Your Spirit is better but still vulnerable, still exhausted. Just because you don't feel it on a conscious level like you did before doesn't mean it's not weak."

"I need to see for myself. Can you call him out again?" I didn't doubt Coyote's assessment but a kid was in trouble and I wasn't sure I'd be able to look at myself in the mirror if I didn't try to help somehow.

"Dean, are you sure about this?" Sam asked.

"He's ten Sam, yeah, I am."

The woman I loved looked at me with solemn, quiet eyes that seemed years and years older than they should be. "As you wish Dean. I'll need some time to prepare."

"Of course."

She left. Sam watched her go, "What was that all about?" he asked once she'd gone into her Sacred Space upstairs.

"That was Shaman Running Coyote setting aside her feelings for me and for what she wants to do her job. Be a guide for some damn fool who's probably going to make the worst mistake of his life, again."

"Then why do it?"

"For the same reasons she's doing this. It may be the worst mistake of my life but it still may be the right thing to do. I need to think. I'll be in the garage. Let me know when she's back."

I grabbed a beer, stormed into the garage, stopped short of slamming the door because I didn't want to disturb Coyote and leaned on Baby. "Well doesn't this just fucking suck."


	10. Of Wolf and Man

I was half expecting Sam to follow me, but he stayed away which worked for me. One reason I'd been able to stay clear of hunting since moving in with Coyote was I refused to look at news reports, read papers, think about the outside world. For the first few weeks it was hard has hell to do. It'd been habit for so long, get up, get food, look for jobs. Coyote liked to stay up on current events and she'd had to train herself to not mention anything that was going on to me. I'd often wondered how people had no clue what was really going on out there, after a few months I understood why. If you don't look, you don't know and you can't care about things you know nothing about. There are millions of tragedies going on every day, most people have no clue. Admittedly if you try to care about everything and everyone you'd drive yourself nuts so I guess I couldn't blame them. My entire life I'd been scouring reports of killings, abuse and torture to try to find the one or two monsters that weren't actually human. There are plenty of humans that are monsters so after a few years of doing that you get a pretty bleak view of humanity. Thinking about it now I'm pretty shocked that Sam and I are still able to care about anyone at all these days.

Once Sam started hanging out he noticed that I wasn't looking at news and chose not to mention any jobs he was working on. The few jobs I did go on were ones where he'd needed extra backup and he'd waited until the last second to ask, but as soon as we got back to Coyote's place not a word about hunting was said. After a few months I had managed to build a pretty safe anti-hunting bubble. It got a little shattered once I started calling hunters to help with the truck stop, but I didn't mind too much. Most of the chatter faded once we started building the place, I think the other hunters appreciated the break as much as I did. The call from Krissy had just blown the whole thing to shreds.

If it'd been some adult I would have been able to hand it off, let Sam and Coyote go and been fine with it. Kids are something completely different. Kids have always attached themselves to me and I've never minded it. I like kids, maybe it's the fact that they're still innocent or that I never really got to be one myself. Maybe it's the big brother in me I don't know. Kids in trouble always get to me, probably has to do with that protect everyone part of me that I got up close and personal view of when my Warrior Spirit went damn near rabid when Sam and Coyote were threatened. Poor wolf was beat all to hell but it didn't matter.

It wasn't just that though. Coyote isn't really good with kids either. She doesn't know how to talk to them or act around them and she's not that fond of them in general. They're loud and rambunctious, she likes things a lot calmer. It was a good thing I wasn't all that keen on having my own kids or that could be an rather large issue between us. I've got no problem helping out other people's kids, I did it all the time on the Reservation but wasn't too sure I wanted the responsibility full time. I'd done that once all ready raising Sam. If she managed to get Jacob talking he was going to need someone around that didn't just understand being controlled by something but someone that he feel comfortable opening up to, Sam and Coyote weren't those people. As much as I loved them, it was the truth.

Problem was that I wasn't too sure I'd be comfortable with delving back into what I'd need to to help him. I wasn't sure if Coyote was doing things to help with my nightmares, if it was the fact that I was more relaxed, wasn't hunting or a combination of all of it but I'd go weeks now without one, at least one that I could remember. When I'd ask her she said the same thing. I used to wake her up all the time because I'd be thrashing around in my sleep or screaming but that barely happened now. Even though the hate the Mark had been shoving into me head was gone and I'd manage to start separating out my motives for doing things from the guilt Azazel had given me I still had days where I was on edge, pissy and filled with this random rage or frustration that I didn't know where it came from. Usually I'd take off and go for a hike or a long ass drive to get as far away as I could from Coyote so I wouldn't do or say anything that would hurt her. I still feel that push towards violence every now and again which scared the crap out of me. Hell, all that hate that poured through me just from Krissy telling me about Jacob was way out of line, or maybe it was just because it'd been so long since I'd felt it that it felt out of whack.

All this crap was why I wanted to see the wolf again. Seeing him was what made me realize how truly screwed I was, how close to completely lost I'd become. I've never been all that good with monitoring my mental or emotional health, at least until it was on four legs and in my face. I'd wanted to have her call him out before but I knew it wasn't an easy thing to do so I'd ask her how I was doing, especially at first. The last few months I hadn't because I felt so good, so happy. I wouldn't be much help to Jacob if I lost it again and judging from how pissed off I was feeling I wasn't as stable as I thought I was. Yeah sure, my happy little paradise had gotten shattered but I should have expected that. I'd rather have it be a kid needing counseling then Sam dead or a demon knocking at my door.

There was a knock on the door, "Yeah?"

Sam opened it but didn't walk in. "She's out on the porch. She's ready when you are."

I tossed the empty can in the trash, "Thanks."

I tried to walk into the house but he blocked me. "Don't do this. Please. Stay here, stay out of it. Let us handle it." Usually I was the one telling him to stay out of things to stay safe. All that carefree happiness he'd shown yesterday was gone, he was beyond serious and pretty much begging me to walk away.

"Stay here and what? Put that whole conversation out of my head somehow? Not worry about the kid?"

"I can handle this, so can she. We're not incompetent."

That pissed me off and I wasn't really sure why, "Never said you were. Now move."

He put his hand up, "Stop, right now. How the hell are you going to help him when we haven't even left yet and you're an inch away from ripping things to shreds? She's right, you know it. Accept it and back down."

I got a handle on it, "Sam, yesterday I pulled off something I never thought I get a chance to do. I gave you a pretty damn awesome birthday party, spent a whole day doing nothing but celebrating and having a great time. Today the shit hit the fan, excuse me for being pissed off about it. I know she's right, but her being right doesn't mean I can't help someone. Now let me do this, I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet. If that wolf looks as bad off as a year ago I'll stay here, I promise."

"You know it won't so that's a worthless promise."

He had a point. "Sam, please."

For a second there I thought he was going to lock me in the garage, or at least try. "Go get in touch with your inner self, but we're not going anywhere until the three of us have a long ass talk about this. You do not get to throw your weight around and pull the older brother card on me anymore. Not when it comes to this. I want reasons, answers and not your usual do it my way or the highway attitude. Understand?"

"Do you honestly think you can stop me from going?"

"I think I can tell you that I'll walk out that door and not come back and you'll believe it because you know I've got someone else to hunt with. I won't watch you destroy yourself again and I won't help you do it either, neither will she. We may not be able to physically stop you from going but we can sure as hell make you wish we had."

I was suddenly a lot less pissed off, "I know. Sorry. I won't be a jackass about this, my word on that. We good?"

He didn't move or drop his eyes away from mine for another few seconds, "For now."

Once he moved to the side I went out to the porch. Coyote was standing barefoot in the dirt out past where the porch ended. There was a pretty good spring breeze that was making her hair shift and dance along with it. She was dressed in loose brown cotton pants, a short sleeve t-shirt and her silver armband. Her eyes were closed but she must have heard the door because as soon as I stepped out on the porch she started singing and shuffling. I wasn't sure if I should stay where I was or move closer but she waved me over and pointed at a spot about two feet away from her. I followed her directions and put my hand towards her since I knew she'd need blood at some point. Her singing grew louder, she raised her head and the air around me felt thick and alive with power. Her eyes opened up just enough so she could see. She pulled the knife from her waistband, grabbed my hand, sliced it, wiped her finger along the cut and closed her hand again.

That weird pressure and heat started building in my chest, it felt a lot stronger than last time. She tossed a handful of herbs that she grabbed from her pocket in the air and the sucking feeling kicked in, except this time I was pretty damn sure my lungs were coming out with the wolf. He jumped out, landed a few feet away and I had to gasp for air.

"What the hell?"

Coyote stopped singing, "He's stronger now."

"I don't remember Sam or Cougar gasping for air last time."

"Cougar is used to it and I linked you and Sam together to cushion the blow."

"Little warning would have been nice."

The neutral, Shaman looked slipped, she was pissed that I was even contemplating going. "You'll live. I'll leave you two alone. Let me know when you're done." She didn't even look back as she walked inside.

"Guess I kind of deserved that." My wolf shook himself and looked over his shoulder at me. The first thing I noticed was he had a lot more fur, the second thing I noticed was he was more gray and less midnight black. He turned around and I saw his chest. The white spot had spread and there was no blood oozing from anywhere on him. "Huh, looking pretty good there buddy." He was still scarred, probably always would be, but he didn't look like he'd just done ten rounds with sociopath anymore. It was more like he'd done ten rounds with a sociopath sometime in the distant past, which was a rather large improvement. He walked closer and I ran my hand along his back, the emotions that that triggered were a lot more muted than last time. I'd hit a scar and I'd remember something but it wasn't so in my face and painful.

"Seems we're doing better now."

He'd been looking out across the plains when I said that but his ears swiveled back at my words. He moved a little to the left and my hand hit a scar. My gun was in my hand and it was pointing at Coyote's head as she screamed. Then there was a stabbing, burning pain coming from my hand and I was staring at the wolf who had his teeth locked onto my hand. I hadn't moved but the image was still so clear in my head.

My ass hit the ground, "How? God no, it's gone. How can that still be so strong?"

The wolf didn't say anything of course. Just whimpered and leaned into me. "You moved that way on purpose didn't you? You know what each of those links to, right?"

He nodded. "Great. You're not too keen on helping Jacob are you?"

He did this weird doggy head tilt which I took as a maybe.

"You do get the irony here right? I'm asking a four footed manifestation of my internal self if I am psychologically stable enough to help a kid who's just had his soul raped by some sort of cursed object. This in itself should tell me that I'm not stable at all. My life never ceases to confuse me."

That got a wolfy smile, tongue hanging out to one side of his mouth and everything.

I sighed and he sat down next to me. "It's a kid."

He growled and snapped at the empty air.

"Exactly. It's not a hunt. We're not killing anything, the bad guy's already dead. All we're doing is helping a kid through the aftermath. Yeah, it will bring back memories but I've got Baby back too. Just getting in her will bring stuff back too. Right?"

The wolf had no comment.

"It's a one time thing. I went on hunts earlier, nothing bad happened."

That got me a skeptical wolf look.

"Well okay, nightmares got worse, I drank a lot more and I was jacked up for a week or so when I got back, but nothing really bad happened."

He snorted and looked away.

"Not helping."

His tail flicked once, but he didn't bother to look back at me.

"Fine. Going on those wasn't the best idea but Sam needed backup."

That got a sigh and a long level look directed my way.

"What? I've gotten better about it. You have to admit that."

He just kept staring.

"You know as well as I do if they go and I stay I'm going to drive us both nuts wondering about what's going on and it's going to stir all this crap up anyway."

He gave me a slow nod and dropped his head onto his paws.

"Why do I do this? It's not the guilt thing anymore, I know that. So why? Why can't I just convince myself I've done my part and call it quits?"

He lifted his head off his paws and stood up, which made him eye level with me. Even though he was me it was kind of intimidating having his eyes locked onto to mine like that. The red tint was gone, they were just the usual wolf colored yellow but there was no doubt who and what he was. He was a fighter who'd do anything to protect those he cared about. What Azazel said before the guilt speech came back to me, how I was Michael's perfect vessel, all the love and all the loyalty was programmed into me. I often wondered if it hadn't been for the guilt if I would have been able to kill Sam like Dad had ordered me to do. The guilt over Mom's and Dad's death made me choose to save Sam instead of leaving him for dead. What if in the end Azazel's guilt had been the whole reason I helped Sam stop the Apocalypse. Wouldn't that be the ultimate irony? That the guilt was what made me choose my brother over my father, unlike Michael.

I didn't know Jacob but I cared about him, he needed someone that could understand him. I could. I didn't look away from the wolf's eyes. "We have to do this, you know that."

He barely nodded but I felt it deep down, he was agreeing with me. "I won't go off on my own like before, this isn't about punishing myself for anything. This is our job, it's who we are. Right?"

A rather large paw landed on top of my hand and that sense of resolve grew even stronger. "All right. Not hunting, helping. Think she'll be okay with this?"

He flinched, whined and covered his eyes with the paw that wasn't on my hand. "Wimp. She'll get it, because she's made the same choice. We just have to remind her of that fact."

His paw dropped away from his eyes, he looked towards the house, lowered his ears which made him look absolutely pathetic and butted his head against my chest. I didn't feel any sadness from him, it was more the sense that he wanted to hide.

"Not getting out of this that easy. We need her to send you back so suck it up. You'll have to be part of this conversation whether you want to or not."

He pulled his head back from my chest and seemed to be trying to make himself look bigger, not by raising his fur or anything threatening, just more like he was trying to get the courage to face her. I think we both were but it was easier to watch him freak out about it then feel it myself. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

I stood up and we went inside to face both of them. It was going to be a long day.


	11. Who Am I

The house had never felt this high strung, it felt more like the Bunker, which sucked. Coyote's house should never feel like this. I hated that hunting had tarnished it somehow and I swore to myself right then and there that I'd do everything I could to keep it from happening again. This was our place to escape, not have all this crap come up. Sam and Coyote didn't say anything when the wolf and I walked in. I wanted to go get another beer but decided against it. I took a seat next Coyote on the couch, the wolf laid down at my feet and uncomfortable silence filled the air. Sam was across from us in the chair.

They weren't going to let me off easy so I decided to take the plunge. "I can handle it. I want to go."

Sam's eyes were on the wolf, "He and therefore you by proxy look better. We all know you've been getting better but that's not what worries us."

"Okay, what does?"

"What happens if we can't help Jacob? What happens when you get attached and it turns out that we can't save him? We all know how you've always dealt with that before. You don't give up."

"Neither do you so don't put that only on me."

"I didn't used to, I've learned how. Something hunting with Roy made me learn."

That was news to me, "What do you mean?"

"There's been times where if it had been you and I out there we would have dragged ourselves through hell and high water to help someone, Roy and I don't."

"You're bailing on people? What the hell Sam!"

"No, not bailing. Taking a step back and asking for help if we're getting in too deep. Not going after demons because we hate them, not tapping into the dark side of things to save someone. Things you and I didn't do. We don't push ourselves to go after every monster out there. That's how Roy's able to stay on an even keel and spend time with Thea, it's how I've stayed sane. We've set limits on what we're willing to risk. Can you do that Dean? You never have before and it's not how you usually think."

"So what, you're picking and choosing hunts now?" I really had no room to talk since I'd quit, but it bothered me.

He got quiet, way too quiet. "I'm making sure Roy makes it home to Thea and doesn't turn into us or Oliver. I'm the older one now, he's my responsibility. I get a whiff of sulphur or any hint of demon or something else too high up on the food chain we bail and call someone else. I've found hunters that specialize in demons and pagan gods so I call them. Call me a coward if you want, say I'm not doing my job but it's been a year and neither of us have ended up in the hospital, possessed or dead. Did you and I ever manage that?"

I couldn't lie, he'd lived through it after all, "No." That explained why he hadn't needed me on any hunts after those first few. They'd been some pretty tough cases, he hadn't wanted to ask but he'd sort of had no choice. I'd noticed he really hadn't seemed that stressed lately either, even when he'd come from a hunt close by. If he and Roy were cherry picking hunts that'd make things a lot easier.

"Exactly. So can you go into this with limits or not?"

"Define limits."

"That if whatever is going on with Jacob starts seriously adversely affecting you, you leave, and, if after a decent amount of time he doesn't get better we tell Krissy we've done all we can and turn him over to someone else. No deals, no jumping headfirst into things without researching and no dark magic."

My first impulse was to point out that all of the things he was making off limits was exactly what had kept us alive this long. The wolf leaned hard against me which made me look down and see the other side of what all those things had brought about. I got the point, "All right."

They both looked a bit surprised at that but Sam chose not to make an issue out of the fact that I'd agreed so fast. "Good."

"Anything else before we start figuring out how to do this?" I asked. Coyote hadn't said a word which worried me.

"Not really," Sam said, I knew that wasn't the truth, if the way Coyote looked was any indication but she'd probably hold off until we were alone. "Should we have her bring him here?"

"No," I answered, pretty emphatically might I add. "The Bunker. More resources there and if things get out of hand we have a lot more options for dealing with it there than here," And I was pretty damn sure having a white kid show up out of nowhere and stay with us would start some serious talk among the people who still had issues with Coyote and I. No need to make that crap start up all over again.

"Makes sense," I could tell he was starting to wonder why Coyote hadn't said anything, "I'll go call Krissy, find out where she is, all that and more information on the blade. Maybe we can find something about it in the archives. You guys want to leave today or tomorrow?"

I looked at Coyote, "Tomorrow? May as well clean up before we go."

"Fine." She got up and went upstairs. Shit.

"Tomorrow then," Sam said. He glanced upstairs then back down at me. "You sure about this?"

"Yeah. We'll work it out. Go call her."

He nodded and went to the spare room. The wolf whimpered and sunk his head onto his paws. "I know. Well we were bound to have a fight at some time or other I guess. Coming?" He didn't move. "Can't say I blame you. All right."

I followed her into our room and shut the door, "Which is it? Pissed, scared or hurt?"

She was sitting on the bed, her back facing the door. "When you first moved in, I kept things back as far as how much I let myself feel. You know that, even though you said this wasn't a port in a storm thing this time I wasn't sure, neither were you as much as you said otherwise. When you did those hunts with Sam, each time I expected you to come back, pack your stuff and leave again. Then you didn't. Months went by and you settled in, made this place your home. You started to make friends here, working on the cars, making a life for yourself, for us. When you got that Mustang and told me what you had planned for it, that's when I knew that you'd really decided to quit."

She turned around and tears were streaking down her cheeks. She'd only cried like this twice that I'd ever seen, when she told me about her Dad's death and when Rising Dove passed away. "I know Jacob's a kid and I know how that gets to you, as much as I want to be pissed I can't because you'd never say no to helping a kid who'd been hurt. I'd never be able to love a man that would. I'm not hurt, not in the way you're thinking. I'm scared because I know you, I know how deeply ingrained the whole concept of saving people is in you. Once you get back out there I'm afraid you won't be able to stop again. This is the best metaphor I can use for this even though it sounds bad but it's almost like an addiction for you. When you decided to quit, you cut everything you could out. News, Baby, almost all your weapons, any and every last thing except Sam that would pull you back. You had to fight with everything you had to pull yourself back when you went on those hunts. Now you're diving back into the deep end, going to the Bunker, helping a kid that is dealing with almost exactly the same thing that you went through with the Mark. Baby's back. You think you're stronger but that's when most addicts get over confident. They think they can handle it, then a major stressor comes on and they relapse. You've never been able to separate the job out from yourself, your own soul. I'm worried as hell that helping Jacob is going to trigger all that again. I saw how much hate you felt when Krissy was talking about Jacob. I'm worried that you'll get back out there, see the pain, see the hurt and want to singlehandedly take out every monster out there, and you can't. You never will, no matter how hard you try."

I sat down next to her, brushed some of the tears away and held her hand. "When my inner self and I were chatting outside he made it pretty clear that I'm not all that much better. Whatever the Mark did to me won't ever be completely gone, I know that, have for a few months now. I also know that if I don't help Jacob, or at least try, it will eat at me, you know that too. Yeah, I've pulled the wool over my eyes about what's really out there since I've moved here, made it someone else's problem but one way or another it was bound to come back around. As long as Sam's hunting and I'm still in touch with hunters there was no real way of avoiding that. Of all the possible ways it could come back this is probably the least screwed up. It could be a lot worse, we both know that."

She nodded.

"Coyote, I don't want to take out every monster out there anymore. I want to be here, with you, wrenching on cars and being happily ignorant of reality. Do I hate what they can do? Yeah. Always will, but this isn't hunting, this is helping a kid. It's not the same thing."

"One can easily lead to another," she pointed out.

"Which is why I accepted the limits Sam put on me, on this. I won't go back on that, not to him and not to you. Did that enough over the years. If I start being an idiot, kick my ass, lock me in the dungeon we have down there and don't let me out until I start thinking straight again."

When I said dungeon a very interesting mix of curiosity, confusion and a touch of gallows humor slowed the tears, "You have a dungeon?"

I went for it and ran my hand up her leg. Why not? "Yup, various kinds of restraints too."

"Really?"

"See, this trip could turn out all right after all."

"I'm not sure if I'm impressed or horrified that we just went from helping a kid to contemplating bondage and kinky sex in your dungeon."

"We've always been good at multitasking."

That got a small laugh out of her, it didn't last long though. "All perverted sexual thoughts aside.."

"Aww but why?"

She lightly punched me in the shoulder, "Dean!"

"Okay, okay."

"I don't want you to lose what you've found here, what we have, I don't want you to lose yourself again." There were less tears but it didn't make what she was saying any less painful for her to say or me to hear.

"Honey, I don't want to lose this either and we all know how stubborn I am about doing what I want. This is one and done. I don't want to sleep in crappy hotels, eat shit food and never sleep ever again. I love it here, love you and love my life now. Most of all I love the fact that I can say that." I kissed her cheek, "I've spent my life fighting for other people, because I thought I had to, I thought all their pain was somehow my fault. I know now that wasn't true. You know how hard I fought for people I barely knew. Imagine how hard I'm going to fight for you, for us. I'll be fine, it may suck for a bit but I'll make it through."

She nodded and I could see some of the worry start to disappear.

"Besides, I've got you and Sam to keep me in line. Sam seems to have this idea that he's all grown up now so he doesn't have to take my crap anymore. I swear, give kids a car and they get all independent and over confident."

"And telling your lover that she can lock you in a dungeon if you start giving her shit probably wasn't the most strategic move either," she added.

"Nope. So see? I have to behave."

She leaned in and placed a rather interesting kiss on my lips, "Well, maybe you can get in a little bit of trouble."

"Yes mistress."

"Very good Dean. I could get used to the sound of that."

Even though it was her saying it, those words triggered a few things I'd never really wanted to think about again. "Don't get too used to it. I'm not all that keen on pain."

"Sorry, got a bit carried away there."

"No worries. My fault for bringing up the whole restraint thing. Feel better?"

"Probably as good as I'll be until this is over and we're back here. I'll be keeping an eye on you, promise if I tell you to take a break or leave you will. Please."

"Promise."

"All right." She took a deep breath, "Let's try to help this kid out."


	12. Returning to Old Haunts

We headed back downstairs, Sam was just walking back in from the guest room. "She'll meet us there tomorrow afternoon around three. I figured we'd have everything cleaned up and be on the road later today so that should give us time to get settled in before they show up."

"Sounds good," I said. "Let's do this then."

The wolf stood up when he saw Coyote, his tail was wagging at full speed. She looked at me, "Huh, never really envisioned you wagging your tail when you see me."

"If I had one, I would be."

"O-kay, this just got weird," Sam said.

"In the general scheme of things we've dealt with, it's not all that weird."

"Maybe not to you, since the wolf is you, but yeah, picturing you with a tail and wagging it just...uggh."

I followed his thought process for a second, "Hmm, okay yeah, weird." I sat down next to the wolf, then it actually did get weird. He licked my face, which meant I tasted my cheek while feeling the stubble on my tongue at the same time I felt his tongue on my cheek. I was now officially confused and kind of creeped out. "Uh, calm down buddy." I guess he was happy Coyote and I weren't fighting. "We're taking off soon so you've got to go back."

He actually seemed kind of sad about that, which didn't make a lot of sense. Maybe he just liked to get out every now and again. He leaned into me and Coyote started the process to send him back but instead of jumping back in like last time he just sort of faded into me. It felt good, there was no pressure or heat, I just felt more together, more content I guess is the best way to say it. "Is that supposed to happen? Him fading like that?"

She had this wistful, pleased look on her face, "It's a good sign. You are more connected to your Warrior Spirit then you used to be."

"How can I not be connected to it?"

"Maybe the term I should use is more aware of it. You're paying more attention to what you're feeling than before."

"Well, can't argue with that."

Sam was taking all that in with a pretty analytical look on his face. I had a feeling all this was going to be brought up in a late night Bunker conversation at some point. "Let's do this." Was all he said for now.

It didn't take too long to take all the decorations down, take the left over food to some neighbor's houses since we didn't know how long we'd be gone and start packing. Coyote was bringing a lot of herbs and stones with her, she'd need them to try to get Jacob talking. I'd been thinking a lot about what Sam had said about setting limits on what he and Roy would risk while we did all that. At first it'd seemed like a pretty cowardly way to hunt, picking easy things to take out but the fact was that easy things still do a lot of damage and I couldn't argue with the fact that it seemed safer, that's for damn sure. As far as I could tell neither he or Roy had barely gotten scratched over the last year. What I hadn't really noticed or thought about until he'd brought it up was that he was the oldest now, that he was the one who had to take on the responsibility for someone else. To me, he'd always be my little brother, plain and simple, but now Roy was his for all intents and purposes. Once I started looking at things that way I was kind of shocked at how different he handled that than I had over the years. My way tended to involve throwing myself at anything that even looked funny at him, taking it down any way I could no matter what it cost. Of course it's not like we chose to be vessels, but Apocalypse aside, even in everyday hunts I just bull rushed my way through them. He didn't, his way of keeping Roy safe was a lot more proactive than mine had ever been. It'd give me something to think about on the drive that's for sure.

"I assume we're taking Baby?" Coyote asked as we finished packing.

"No." I hadn't really planned to say that and at first I was kind of surprised I had.

Coyote must have been too because she stopped folding her clothes. "Really?"

"Yeah, really. She just got home, no need to take her out for this. I'll help Sam move the weapons over to his car and we can take yours. If that's all right with you."

She recovered pretty fast, "Sure. Doesn't matter to me."

We finished packing and rejoined Sam in the living room. "Hey let's get the weapons out of Baby and into your car then hit the road."

"We can do that when we get to the Bunker."

"Not taking Baby, let's do it now."

Sam just about fell over, "What?"

"I told her she was getting a rest. We'll follow you in Coyote's car. Come on, back yours up to the garage once I get the door open."

I don't think he actually started moving until after I got out to the garage. I opened the door and guided him to within inches of Baby's trunk. He got out and stared at me.

"You're seriously not taking her?"

"I think I said that already," I pointed out as I opened her trunk.

"Why?"

"I'm not hunting, just helping a kid. No need to take her to do that."

He watched me start unloading weapons, I'd forgotten just how many there were. I think he'd added a few too. "Dean, I know we're kind of riding you about being careful but, it's Baby man."

"Sam, Coyote's worried about this whole thing, she's got some decent reasons to be. I've screwed up a lot of things in my life, hurt a hell of a lot of people because I refused to listen to what they had to say. I'm not screwing this up. If this last year has taught me anything it's that it wasn't just the monsters and the demons that ruined a lot of things for me, it was how I chose to handle things. I'm not taking any chances this time. I love Baby, always will, but making sure I don't somehow go dark again or lose Coyote is more important to me. Now grab some gear. We've got a long drive."

"Uh, all right." He finally got into gear and we sorted everything out between the trunk box and the one I had put under the back seat. He'd end up tinkering with the final layout over the next few months I'm sure but we got everything loaded. Coyote sent an email out to the tribe that she was heading out of town for week or two and told them who to contact if something came up, I told Rabbit that my Baby was in the garage and keep an eye on the place and we headed out.

I did however take the first leg of the drive, since Sam had a new toy to play with I decided to have some fun. "Hold on sweetheart."

"Shit," was all she said as I pulled into the lane next to him and looked over. Technically I was driving on the wrong side of the road, but there was no cops on the Reservation and even less traffic.

He shook his head first, then I stomped on the gas and he gave in. Coyote's car isn't a slouch when it comes to speed and I was actually kind of curious which car would pull ahead. Turns out it was pretty tight, I edged him out but it was close. After two miles I slowed down and pulled in behind him. All three of us had some pretty big grins on our faces. All in all not a bad way to start a trip.

Seven or so hours later we pulled up to the Bunker. Coyote had never seen it although I'd told her all about it. "Interesting looking place, would never guess there was a supernatural library inside."

"That was pretty much the point." I had a lot of mixed emotions about the place running through me. It was the first place I ever called home as an adult, first place I had my own room, the place I tried to kill Sam and where Sam killed Kevin because of my lies. For only being here three or so years there was a crap ton of memories that Sam and I had built here.

"Babe? You okay?"

"I guess. Let's grab our stuff and get inside." This was going to be a lot more complicated than I'd thought, her and Sam had been right to try to stop me from coming back. It wasn't going to help me at all. We got in, walked down the stairs and it hit me. Outside of the one time I'd come to get my clothes I hadn't been back here since we'd removed the Mark. Somehow everything felt darker, colder. Sam turned on the lights and I saw he'd changed a few things around. He'd added a TV of all things, which we're were going to talk about later, but that wasn't what drew my attention the most. He'd put pictures up, pictures of us, pictures of he, Roy and Thea out somewhere, they were laughing. It looked like he was printing out cell phone pictures and framing them. He'd blown up some of the pictures of Mom, Dad and I from way back when and had them on the walls.

"Wow Sam, you've really gotten into decorating."

"Well, it's just me here now and the place needed some livening up."

"Looks good. You got any beer in the fridge?"

"Yeah..wait...shit."

I'd already stepped into the kitchen when he said shit, "Out of be -" On the wall over the coffee pot there was a picture. "Sam? What's this?" It was of Dad and us as adults all standing around Baby, we all had smiles on our faces and we were looking at each other.

"Felicity knows a pretty kick ass graphic artist. I sent her pics of all of us and Baby and this is what she did. I was going to give you a copy for your birthday. You don't have any photos of us at Coyote's place and I thought since you'd officially retired you could use one."

"It's, wow. If I didn't know this never happened I would think it was an actual picture of us."

Coyote walked up behind me, "It's beautiful Sam. I know just the place for it too."

"Happy early birthday I guess." He gave me this awkward smile.

"Thanks. I'll forget I saw it so I can act all surprised when you give it to me. Sound good?"

"Sure."


	13. Settling in For the Long Haul

We all grabbed something to drink and I took Coyote on a tour of the place. It didn't take her long to be utterly impressed with it.

"How many books and files are in here?"

"Thousands. These guys date back centuries. The things Sam and I have found in here would blow your mind."

"And one demon took them all out?"

"Knight of Hell, a bit more complex than a demon. Damn near unkillable actually. She got inside and just went to town." We rounded the corner and I pulled open the door to the dungeon. "My two favorite features other than the warding are this room and the fact that somehow this place scrambles cell signals. Cell phones weren't even a thought in anyone's head when they built this place. I don't know how they pulled it off, just happy they did." I grabbed the bookcases and slid them apart. "Here's the dungeon."

She shivered, gasped and took a step back, "No!"

I hadn't expected that response, I closed the bookcases as fast as I could "Honey? You okay?"

Her eyes were squeezed shut, I reached out to try to steady her as she leaned against the wall. As soon as my hand touched her skin her eyes flew open and they were totally out of focus. She wasn't seeing me, she was seeing something else. "Demon!"

"Coyote! Hey, it's me!"

Her eyes came back into focus but were totally filled with fear, "I saw you, in a chair, in that room. You had black eyes, you were a demon, the hate, the violence, the sheer evil...you, you never told me. I thought it was just nightmares, fears of what the Mark could do to you. Not that it had happened. Why?"

My heart dropped and my stomach started knotting up, worst mistake ever bringing her here. One of these days I'll actually think my way all the way through a plan. I just hoped she wouldn't see my lack of telling her as lying, that wouldn't go well. "I guess I kind of thought you already knew, plus it's not something I really knew how to bring up. I figured with your Shaman gifts and the pouch you'd have seen it at some point or other. You didn't ask and I didn't want to talk about it. Talking about the nightmares when you asked about them was hard enough."

"How are you not one now? I don't understand, I thought that was pretty much a permanent condition, that you had to be dead to become a demon."

Coyote had hunted, sure, but she'd never gotten too involved with demons. Luck of the draw or just didn't stay in it long enough. Native culture doesn't have demons so she'd never have had to deal with them all that often. "Technically yes, I was dead, King of Hell used the First Blade and the Mark to turn me into a demon. The Mark doesn't let the people it's attached to go all that easily. Sam and I had found a way to cure demons earlier for something else we had to do, he trapped me and turned me back. Those dreams where I tried to kill him? Not just dreams."

As I'd explained things the fear left her, she looked back at the bookcases and shivered again. "That's not all I saw, what they did in there, what they imprisoned. I can still feel it, the spells, the energy, it all lingers in places like that."

"I'm sorry, I didn't think my way all the way through this. Sometimes I forget about what you can pick up on. You're not mad that I didn't tell you about the demon thing?"

She shook her head and straightened up, "I could be I guess but what would be the point? I knew something was seriously wrong with you, my instincts told me to run, I didn't. My choice. You didn't know I was psychically and spiritually linked with you so I can't blame you for subjecting me to that can I? Knowing about it now doesn't change anything. If Sam had called and told me you were a demon, I'd have been right next to him in that dungeon saving your ass. So no, I'm not mad."

I couldn't think of a single thing to say, which doesn't happen all that often, so I just held her. She would have had every right to blow up at me, finding out she'd been sharing head space with a demon even years after it happened would more than qualify for getting kicked out of her life. "Thank you. I should have told you, I just..." I still didn't feel that I'd done anything to deserve her sticking around, waiting for me and putting up with me. It almost hurt how much she'd done and put up with to make this work. I'd had it easy compared to her, after all she wasn't damaged almost beyond saving like I had been.

"I know Babe, I know. Just, from now on, no holding back. Especially now that I know the truth. This thing with Jacob, being here, you have to be careful. Memories are powerful Dean, I'm not saying you'll turn into a demon again but I think I have a better idea of why you feel like you have to do this."

I let her go, "Yeah there's a lot of shades of being influenced by evil crap, or even not evil crap. Sam and I know them all."

"Not just that," She turned away to head back to the main room, "You want redemption and not in anyone else's eyes, but in your own."

"This isn't about guilt Coyote."

"I know, that's why I said redemption. There's a difference. Let's see what Sam's up to."

I took another look at the bookcases that hid the dungeon. Everything I said to Sam that day rang in my head, every thought, every twisted demonic wish came back to me. I remembered how it felt as the purified blood worked it's way into my system, feeling absolute disgust at what I was feeling while at the same time being excited by the freedom being a demon gave me. No rules, no cares, just utter freedom from everything. I didn't care about saving the world, saving Sam or anything else, all I cared about was me. I'd never tell Sam or anyone else this but as the demon side weakened, there was a twisted, sick part of me that didn't want it to leave. One of Sam's contentions when he was soul less was that having a soul made him weaker, he was a better hunter without it. He'd fought tooth and nail against us shoving his soul back in him, I couldn't see how he could until I was a demon. It's not just the obvious damage that being possessed or influenced can do to you that we had to help Jacob through. If this cursed blade had worked like the Mark and you were actively aware of what was going on, it would be much, much worse. Because then the blade would have made him want to kill, Clive said the others had no idea of what had happened but I highly doubted that. That only works if something takes you over and blocks you from seeing what's going on, cursed objects usually don't work that way. It's hard enough to sort that out when you're an adult, I had no idea how to get a ten year old through it. Which really didn't matter because come hell or high water I was going to figure it out. I had to, because for a few minutes there I had legitimately wanted to kill Sam, both when I was a demon and during that ritual. Everything else I'd done when I'd been fucked up I could handle, but that I couldn't. She was right, there is difference between guilt and redemption. I didn't feel guilty about it, but I wanted some way to balance the scales, at least the scales in my head.

I followed her out and back to the main room, thinking about the First Blade and the Mark reminded me about something. "Sam? Where are you?"

"Kitchen," he shouted back.

I crossed the hall and headed to the kitchen, "Hey have you called Clive yet?"

"No."

He was making food, Coyote was sitting at the table. "Get in touch with him, get that blade and bring it here."

"I was going to do that after we dealt with Jacob. Didn't think it was a great idea to have that here with him."

"We need to see if there is some lingering link, like there was with me and the First Blade. I could feel that thing even after Cas had hidden it. Just because he hasn't done anything violent doesn't mean it's not talking to him or can't call to him when it's taken out of the curse box. We may have to destroy the damn thing to get Jacob back to normal."

Sam sighed, "I sense a long night of research ahead."

I patted his shoulder and sat down next to Coyote, "Bright side, we can test out this new digital archive you and Felicity have been working on."

That made him look a little more excited about it, "Uh, not really."

"Why?"

"I'm going alphabetically by species of supernatural creature."

I really didn't like the sound of that, "Which letter are you on?"

"D, and there's a lot of lore on demons. Sorry."

"I had to pick a case that dealt with an obscure culture that starts with the letter Z to come back on didn't I?"

Coyote snickered, "Sounds about par for the course for you."

"Thanks, really." Which meant we were back to using books. Great.

Six hours later we'd found pretty much jack and squat out about the Zapotecs. What we had found was the usual "if a person is a vessel of a god how to kill it" which was no great help since none of us were all that keen on killing a ten year old and we didn't know the name of the god the blade was dedicated to.

I threw the last of the stack of books I'd been working on the table, "I'm done. We'll just have to wait to get the blade. Tomorrow should be entertaining. Jacob and the blade showing up around the same time."

Coyote looked at her watch, "Any stores around here? We should stock up on food since we'll be here for a few days. Your fridge is pretty bare Sam."

"Yeah I know. There is. I'll make a food run in the morning."

"All right, let's order out and then I'm going to pass out."

"There's a good Chinese place," Sam said, "Here's the menu." He pulled it up on his laptop. We all figured out what we wanted, I called in the order and Sam went to pick it up. We were all pretty wiped out from the drive and the books so once we ate we headed to bed.

"This will be challenging," Coyote said once we got to my old room. Neither of us are exactly small people and the bed isn't all that big. She had upgraded to a king sized bed a few months after I moved in.

"Sorry, all the beds are that size here. The Men of Letters didn't seem too be big on cohabitation. We can take two different rooms I guess."

"Not really keen on that idea, I'll just pretend I'm in college again sneaking a boy into my dorm room."

"That brings back some good memories..."

"Sneak into a lot of dorm rooms back in the day?"

I winked, "Let's just say Sam's not the only one who got an Ivy League education. Difference is, I didn't have to pay for mine and there weren't a lot of books involved."

"Should I say it?" She started taking off her shirt.

"What?"

"Major was Women's Studies, right?"

"That's an option?"

"Yup."

"Damn! No one told ever told me that!"

"Which was probably a good thing."

We managed to get comfortable enough and settled in. Tomorrow I'd get to deal with cursed objects and a kid who'd had his whole world trashed by something beyond his comprehension. It was just like old times, joy.


	14. And So It Begins

Coyote wasn't next to me when I woke up, which confused the crap out of me for a second. There were no weapons on the walls even though I was in my room in the Bunker, my heart started racing because I'd had nightmares that had scenes like this in them more than once.

The door opened, "Babe? You up?" She had two cups of coffee with her, she was about to set them down on the desk when she noticed I was having a mild heart attack. "Dean? Everything all right?"

"Yeah, just woke up weird."

"Oh," she set her hand on my arm for a second then handed me a mug. "This will help. Sam said he made it old school style."

"Have you tasted it yet?"

"No. Why?"

"Did you put your usual sugar amounts in it?" She liked her coffee sweet.

"Yeah, is there a reason I shouldn't have?"

"If you want to be up for the next seventy two hours straight, go for it. If not, you may want to just dump it down the drain. The pipes could probably use a good cleaning anyway."

She gave me that "It can't be that bad,"look, then she took a sip, "Dear Lord! You guys used to drink this?"

"Unfortunately," I took a sip, I may as well have just eaten grounds as strong as it was. I decided I didn't need to be so amped on caffeine that I felt like I had to run a marathon before breakfast and set the cup back down. "He should have warned you."

"He was face down in some books, I was lucky he said hi much less anything about how he'd made the coffee. I've got to get back to making breakfast. I'll make the food run, Sam's in full research mode."

"I wonder if he even slept." There were times in those first few months after I'd moved out that I was more worried about him becoming a complete hermit and I'd have to rescue him from the archives more than I did about him getting hurt or killed on a hunt. It was the first time he'd ever had undisturbed research time since we'd found the Bunker and I wasn't quite sure how he'd handle that.

She gave me a quick kiss and headed back to the kitchen, I notice she'd left her cup. I dumped hers down the drain, then cleaned up and went out to see if Sam had found anything.

"Any luck?"

"Kind of, I ran a search on the digitized stuff, just in case and came up with some images of blades used in Mesoamerican rituals."

"Really? Under what letter?" I asked as I sat down across from him at the kitchen table. He looked a bit embarrassed.

"Uh, Felicity organized some photos of the stash of items we have here without me there to help. She labeled them a bit generically and I hadn't gone back and sorted through them."

"Sam?"

"C for cursed objects, assorted. I'd forgotten about the file till this morning."

Coyote didn't say a word.

"C comes before D right?" I asked.

"Yes. Dean I..."

"So does A, in case it was under assorted. At least last time I checked."

He just gave up, "I'm sorry. I screwed up, get over it . Here, look."

He turned the laptop towards me and I flipped through the pictures and the few links to other documents that they had set up in the system. I felt like I was using a supernatural Wikipedia and it dawned on me just how much faster research would go once they were done. "This is damn impressive Sam. You and Felicity are really going all out on this aren't you?" He hadn't talked to me too much about the project, I think it was in part because he knew I wanted to stay clear of anything hunting related but now I kind of wish he had. His face lit up at the compliment.

"Yeah, we're going to build in a whole search algorithm to that separates out results by category, most likely result and suggested options like you see on the net already. The idea is to get it to the point where we type in something like type of death and things we find on scene and it will narrow it down for us, then list all the references that exist in the archives so we can click through them and find what it is we're after. That's a very basic explanation but that's kind of what we're going for."

"I get it." The sheer number of hours that this would free up for a hunter doing research blew my mind. I started getting excited about it and I wasn't even in the life anymore. "Wow, okay." I refocused on the task at hand, Jacob. The Zapotec people still existed but were mostly Catholic now, they'd been pretty advanced back in the day but I got the feeling that the Men of Letters hadn't been too interested in them. We'd found stuff online about the Zapotecs but no real information on their rituals. Still though you never know what can help out in the end. "Well we can't get too far into this without seeing the blade. Hear from Krissy or Clive yet?"

"Yeah, I'm meeting Clive over by the bridge about two hours from now and Krissy headed this way late yesterday, her and Jacob crashed about halfway here. She should be here around around noon or one."

"Well, it's nine now. Let's get going with the food and prepping a room for Jacob and maybe Krissy if she wants to spend the night. Jacob may not be all that thrilled getting left with a couple of strangers after what he's been through."

"Yeah, good idea."

Coyote headed out for food, Sam and I made up two rooms as best we could. We had never really planned for guests but we managed to wrangle up enough clean sheets to make it work. I sent a text to Coyote to grab some more towels and bathroom stuff in case Krissy didn't bring stuff for Jacob. Coyote got back right before Sam left to meet Clive. Her and I unloaded the car and washed the new linen stuff she'd bought. Sam showed back up about ten minutes before Krissy texted us that she was pulling up.

"Stash the blade in the vaults," I told Sam, "Between the wards on the vaults and the curse box he shouldn't be able to pick up on it, hopefully."

"If that's even an issue," Coyote pointed out.

"Better safe than sorry."

Sam took off down the halls and Coyote and I went upstairs to meet them. She pulled up in a blue Toyota hatchback parked and got out. I could just barely make out Jacob through the windshield, the sun was at a bad angle to see him clearly. He had sandy blonde hair, glasses and didn't look at Krissy or us when she walked up to us. His eyes were empty and totally lost.

"Hey Dean," Krissy said with a quick hug. She'd cut her hair short, almost in a bob cut and those natural leader traits she'd had when she'd been younger had settled into a very definite don't screw with me, tough love kind of vibe. She cared about the kids she helped but she didn't take any crap from them either. "You must be Coyote, I'm Krissy."

Coyote reached her hand out, "Nice to meet you."

Krissy shook it and gave her a quick once over, "You too."

"Is that how he always is?" I asked, "That blank look?"

"Mostly. Sometimes he comes out of it and panics or cries. I can calm him down, he'll stay with me for an hour or two tops, then fades back into the blank stare again. It's like he keeps cycling through coming out of being influenced by the blade."

"He's trapped in that moment," Coyote said.

"I think so."

"Any ideas sweetheart?"

"Let's get him inside and I'll take a look," she answered "I don't want to subject him to anything too intense yet. He may not be strong enough to handle it."

"All right."

"You go with Krissy, I'll hang back."

"Sounds good," Krissy and I went to the passenger side, she opened the door. Jacob didn't turn his head or move.

"Jacob? We're here. This is Dean and that's Coyote. You'll be staying here a few days."

I crouched down so I was eye level with him, "Hey there Jacob, nice to meet you." He was wearing a denim jacket, jeans and an Iron Man shirt. "Oh man, I love Iron Man! He's got the best stuff! That suit is frigging awesome right?"

He didn't look at me but something flickered across his face, "My brother's got all the movies inside." Sam had gotten hooked on Marvel movies, it was Roy's fault. He was all into comic books and had apparently taken advantage of all the hours on the road to catch Sam up on comics. Roy was more into DC stuff than Sam though for some reason. "We can watch them if you want." His hand moved a bit but that was it. "Well come on, let's get inside, you guys are probably hungry."

That got a slight nod, I expected him to get out of the car but he just sat there. I wasn't too sure if he'd freak out if I picked him up. Krissy reached past me and gently took hold of his hand, "Jacob, follow me."

He finally turned his head but he looked more like a robot than a kid. There was no sense of life or anything in how he moved, he was simply responding to a command, nothing else. He looked as dead as I'd felt after getting rid of the Mark. I got out of their way and looked over at Coyote who was entirely focused on Jacob. Her eyes followed he and Krissy until they reached the top of the stairs.

Once they started down the stairs she looked away from them and back to me. I really didn't like how she looked. "Well?"

"It's not just what he did, it's what took hold of him. It was too powerful and it ripped through him, destroyed his Spirit. He's basically just a shell. I'm sorry Dean, I don't know if we can help him."

"Not a good answer." I was going to help him, no matter what.

Her jaw tightened, "Careful."

"Are you writing him off already?" There was an answer, had to be.

"Didn't say that, did I?"

Sam appeared at the top of the stairs, "Dean calm down, she's telling you what she sees, not giving up."

"Good, because we aren't going to..." I stopped myself mid rant, hadn't even been at the Bunker a full day and already I was morphing back into the stubborn idiot I'd always been. Talk about ingrained patterns. "Sorry."

She relaxed, "It's fine. Let's get some food in him and see what we can figure out."

"All right." Helping, not hunting. Helping, not hunting. Remember the limits. Remember why I agreed to them. Maybe if I repeated it enough times I'd finally get it.


	15. Breaking Down

We followed Krissy and Jacob back inside, they'd barely made it down the stairs before Jacob had stopped moving. He was looking around and seemed to be focusing on all the books.

"Jacob?" Krissy asked.

If I hadn't been less than five feet from him I wouldn't have heard it, "Library," he whispered.

Krissy's eyes widened but she didn't show any other reaction, probably didn't want to startle him, "Yes, it does look like a library doesn't it?"

He didn't say anything else but judging from her reaction that was a lot more than she'd expected him to do. "Let's sit down and get some food, been a long time since breakfast," she said as she led him towards the tables. She sat him down and jerked her head towards the kitchen.

I was running through all the books within easy reach trying to remember if there was anything that would be remotely interesting to a ten year old kid that didn't have a ton of pictures of monsters, demons or hell in it.

I could tell Sam was too, he suddenly smiled, "I've got something we can look at while they're getting food. The stuff in here is kind of boring. Hang on." He took off down the hall and came back with a hardcover book that I'd never seen before. "My friend left this for me, he's trying to get me caught up on Batman. I get all confused with all these different story lines. You want to look through it?" He sat next to Jacob, set the book down and opened it up. Apparently comic books come in hardcover now, who knew? Jacob lowered his eyes to look at the pages but didn't do much beyond that. Coyote, Krissy and I took the cue and went into the kitchen.

"Take it he usually doesn't notice his surroundings?" Coyote asked.

"Once when we went to a park he perked up. I never thought of taking him to a library, I never know when he's going to snap into a panic so I didn't want to risk going where there wasn't an easy out. When we went to the park we stayed by the car so if we had to leave we could bail fast."

She looked worn out, I hadn't noticed it at first because I'd been more interested in Jacob, "How many other kids are you helping right now?"

She ran her hand through her hair, "Two, I have some friends helping out while I'm here. They're in a lot better shape than he is so have been trying to help me out with him. One is a hunter's kid who's parents gotten taken out by a witch. He's twelve, the other one is younger, a kid who was being raised by a single mom that got killed by a vamp. Her mom's family wants nothing to do with her so I'm fostering her for now."

"Damn." I never really thought about other hunter's kids much, Krissy had come into our lives by sheer luck really. I'd had my hands full just trying to keep Sam and I alive over the years.

"Sit, rest," Coyote said, "I'll make Jacob a sandwich. What do you want to eat?"

"Sandwich is fine. So do you think you can help him?"

"I'm a bit more optimistic now," Coyote answered, "The fact that he reacted to his surroundings is a good sign. I'm not sure how much about Native practices you know or understand but from what I can sense it wasn't just the killing that has made him like this. I think the power of the blade was far too much for him and destroyed his spirit. It's like trying to run too much current through an outlet, it shorts out the entire system. I may be able to help him but I can't make any promises. I've never really worked with a situation like this before. My teacher did but he's no longer with us. I have his teachings with me and will do what I can."

"I'll take all the help I can get. I brought his stuff. When Clive told me how bad he was I told him to grab pictures of his family and a few things from his room, sometimes that helps. The only time he's seemed to recognize them though is when he's panicking or crying. When he's like this I don't even know if he knows who I am. The pictures just make him feel worse though so I've stopped showing them to him."

Coyote had finished up the sandwiches and set one in front of Krissy and took the other one out to Jacob, Sam was still with him. I had a pretty good view of the two, Sam was pointing to something or other in the book but Jacob wasn't doing much. It killed me to see a kid that dead, that out of it. We'd dealt with some mildly traumatized kids before but they usually perked back up after we killed or got rid of whatever screwing with them. For him to still be this bad a month afterward was something I'd never seen before. Not that I'd spent a lot of time with families after a hunt. "Ever had any other kid that was this messed up?"

"One or two, but even then they usually pulled back out of it. You know how resilient kids can be. He may have had problems before this, who knows. I tried to find some information out but I haven't kept up with my hacking skills and I've been way too busy to really dig. Clive posed as a cop with missing persons and went to the school who said he'd was an average kid, no mental issues that they knew of but that doesn't mean there wasn't. He wasn't a stand out student or anything. Supposedly the parents were doing fine, good home life but how many times is all that a lie?'

"Yeah."

"So what do you think? Anything of what you've been through giving you an idea how to help him?"

"I don't know. I've dealt with one of the strongest curses out there but I had years of dealing with all this shit to help me out. I also took it on voluntarily, long story, so I was kind of ready for it. Just having something like that run through you with no warning, no prior knowledge and not even being an adult, I can't really imagine that. The guy who was playing delivery boy, the guys get anything out of him before they killed him?"

"Not a word and it wasn't from lack of trying from what I understand. They said it was like he didn't even feel what they were doing to him."

"He may have been under the blade's power too. It's locked away, we have some serious wards up where it is so it won't be influencing anyone."

She took another bite of her sandwich, "Still think that's a stupid idea Dean."

"I know, but if he is linked with it somehow, destroying it may be the only way to fix him." Not that I'm a big fan of destroying cursed objects. I always have this nagging feeling that we're just releasing all of that bad crap out into the world to find a new home. I don't have any evidence to back that up but still.

Jacob had been slowly eating his food, I guess he'd take commands from anyone because I'd heard Coyote tell him he needed to eat. The sandwich was halfway to his mouth when he dropped it and just about fell out of his chair as he dropped to the floor while scrambling away from Sam.

"No! Stop! Make it stop! I don't want to! Mom!" The sheer amount of terror in his voice hit that part of me that had been on vacation for over a year now. Next thing I knew I was halfway to him, I wasn't quite sure how I'd gotten that far that fast. I slowed up because it dawned on me that some stranger coming out of nowhere running full speed towards him wasn't probably the best way to help him.

Krissy shot past me and kneeled down next to him. "Jacob, shhh, it's me, Krissy. You're safe. You're not there."

His eyes were huge and jerking all around the room, he was breathing hard and shaking like a leaf. He looked at his hands, "Not me! Not me! No!" Then he slammed his hands into his forehead, Krissy grabbed his hands with one of hers and pulled him tight against her with her other arm. "I didn't want to, didn't want to..." He kept repeating that over and over as Krissy hummed and rocked him back and forth.

I felt cold, my palms were sweating and my heart was racing a lot more than it should be for running maybe twenty feet. Sam had held that four year old version of me a lot like that when we were inside my head and I'd told myself over and over I didn't want to kill him for most of the year I'd had the Mark.

"It wasn't you, it's not your fault," Krissy said.

This was hitting way too close to home,. Sam's gaze shifted from Jacob to me, he moved his head towards the kitchen and nodded. He knew, but I couldn't walk away. It was my choice to come here, I'd known what Jacob had been through and I wasn't going to bail just because it was uncomfortable. I shook my head, his eyes narrowed but he didn't push it, at least for now.

Coyote slowly walked over to them, "May I try something?"

Krissy nodded, Jacob's voice had grown softer but his shaking hadn't, he kept twitching and trying to get his hands free, Coyote started singing. It wasn't the song she'd used on me all those years ago, the words were different and so was the melody. It was slower for one thing and it sounded less Native, which made no sense because she was singing in Lakota. The notes she was hitting seemed more like a Western lullaby then a Native one. Krissy let Coyote take over singing and started matching the speed she was rocking Jacob with what Coyote was singing. Eventually he calmed down, closed his eyes and slumped back against Krissy. His breathing evened out and all the tension left his body.

No matter how many times I see Coyote use her Shaman side it still blows my mind. It's something that is so natural for her, such a part of her that I can't really understand how she ever turned it off. Demons, angels, monsters all that they have power, sure, but they also aren't human. Witches have to tap into something outside of themselves, use spells to do what they do, and in a lot of cases the spells don't require you to have any innate skill to work. Sam and I have pulled off tons of spells and exorcisms over the years and we're not anything special. It's blend herbs, recite words and go. The rare psychic that is the real deal, they can be pretty impressive too but what she can pull off is even beyond that. I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching her do things like this. Although it's completely stupid since I have nothing to do with her skill level, it makes me proud of her, proud and honored to know her.

Even though Krissy was still rocking him she was staring at Coyote, "You got him to sleep," she whispered.

"For now, we set up a room for him," she said, "Let's get him into a bed. Hopefully he'll sleep for an hour or two."

Krissy was in a pretty awkward position and couldn't easily lift him so she slowly shifted him to Coyote's arms then stood up. Sam and I followed them down the hall. Krissy pulled the sheets back and Coyote set him on the bed in the room we'd tried to make kid friendly and took his glasses off. They were thicker, light brown, plastic frames that covered the area around his eyes pretty well. Once she took them off we all saw the dark rings under his eyes, he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. Poor kid. They finished tucking him in and we filed back out.

"I put a few things in there that should help him keep calm," Coyote said, "Dean, I need to talk to you."

Sam and Krissy took the hint and headed back to the main room.

"I'm okay," I told her before she asked.

"For now. Rising Dove talked about a thing called Soul Retrieval. I never saw him do it but he left stories about it for me in his writings. When a person has a traumatic experience like this it shatters their soul or spirit like I said but the pieces can sometimes be brought back and put back together in some way or other. I don't really understand the concept and I'm not sure if my talents extend to that, also I'm not sure if Jacob is even capable of doing what he would need to, the ceremony usually requires a bit of help from the person who's soul is being retrieved. At least I think it does."

"Well Krissy's pretty stunned you got him to sleep so that's a start anyway. What can Sam and I do to help?"

She took her eyes off me and looked at Jacob, she was getting as stubborn about helping him as I was. She's never been one to back down from anything and I knew any chance she had to expand her skills she'd take. When Rising Dove passed away she'd told me that she'd never be as skilled as he'd been, would never be able to lead her people like he had. I told her she was wrong that he'd gone out of his way to get her to step into the role of Shaman so must have seen something in her. She hadn't believed me then but three years later she'd managed to get her people to move in directions they never had before. Their lives were improving and from what Rabbit and some others had told me she was much stronger than Rising Dove had ever been. She didn't see it but then I don't think you ever believe you're better than your mentors. Hell, I still think Sam and I are crap hunters compared to Bobby, always will.

"Right now, nothing. I need to research."

"Take it your guides aren't offering any advice?"

"Not anything useful like, do this and this will happen."

I had to chuckle, "Do they ever do that?"

She sighed, "No, but I keep hoping if I bitch enough about it they'll listen."

"I doubt you're the first or last Shaman that's bitched to them about that."

"I know, I know." A brief smile chased away the serious look she'd had since Jacob had freaked out, but it didn't stay on her face that long. "Depending on how this goes he may end up having to relive that whole event while I do it."

She didn't say what was on her mind but I figured I may as well say it, "I'll deal with that when it happens. Maybe just what you have set up in here will help him enough that we can get him through it."

"Maybe," There wasn't a whole lot of conviction in her voice.

"Look, I'll stay here, keep an eye on him, you talk to Krissy. Find out everything you can, never know what might help out. If he starts going off again I'll call you."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"All right."

She left, I went back into the room and sat next to him on the bed. "We'll get you through this Jacob, promise. It'll be hard as hell and suck a lot, but we're not going to let you relive that nightmare for the rest of life. You're too young for that. Way too young."

I kicked off my shoes, stretched out and leaned against the wall. Whatever magic Coyote had put in here was working on me too, I yawned and had to smile. "Damn it woman, you're too good at this." Jacob sighed, mumbled something and curled up into little ball. He was out cold. Good.


	16. Curses and Complications

Sam came in after an hour or so and whispered, "How's he doing?"

"Hasn't moved a muscle, doesn't seem tense or anything, breathing hasn't even picked up. Score one for the Shaman."

He nodded, "Good, come here. Need to talk and I don't want to wake him."

I eased off the bed and joined him in the hallway, we left the door cracked open and took a step or two away from the room. "What's up?" When Sam looks that concerned and serious it's usually not good.

"Krissy gave us more details on how he killed them. Sounds like the blade gave him some serious strength too. There's no way in hell a kid his size could slice that deep into people's chest. We're guessing he sliced their throats first then went to town, she had some pictures of the symbols he engraved into them and I'm running a search to see if anything comes up. Meantime, Coyote wants to look at the blade she what she can pick up off of it."

You'd think after all these years I'd be pretty incapable of having my blood turn to arctic temps because of fear, guess not. "Hell no! She's technically a priest, that thing was designed for someone like her. Not happening."

Sam stepped aside and gestured down the hall towards the main room, "You want to tell her that? I tried, she told me to shut the hell up. I refused to tell her where I put the blade, she's not that happy with me right now. Apparently there's another reason you two get along so well. Sheer idiocy."

Great, she was digging her heels in. "I accepted limits on how far I'm allowed to go with this, she can too. Watch him, I'll go talk to her." Sam didn't look all that optimistic that I'd win this fight. "I'll get her to see reason."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

He slipped into Jacob's room and I went down the hall. Coyote saw me coming, she was way past mildly stubborn and had hit "I'm doing this my way." mode.

Krissy took one look at me and got up from the table, "I'll just go get our stuff from the car." She made as quick an exit she could without actually running.

"Why?" I asked Coyote. "That thing is designed to call to someone like you. We already know what it put Jacob and the other people who got their hands on it through. No need to ask it directly. This is too dangerous." I probably would have had a chance until I said that last part. The minute I said it I knew I'd dug a hole that I'd have to work hard to get out of.

She stood up, her hands and shoulders tensing, "I am capable of taking care of myself, I've dealt with visions before, if you remember. It's not like I don't have any familiarity with cursed objects, thanks to you."

That was a low blow, but she, like me, tends to go for the jugular when she thinks she's right. "Shove it. You have no damn idea. You know what I felt, but that was filtered through me. You don't know how strong the compulsions are, how they twist you and you have no idea fast it can hit. You also had no damn idea that I had actually turned into a demon or legitimately wanted to kill Sam, you thought those were nightmares. They weren't. So no, you don't know shit about cursed objects and I will not risk you, fuck that."

That seemed to cool her off, "Can you see how that thing is linked to him? Can you use that knowledge to try to retrieve some of his soul and get him back to normal?" Or not, apparently she'd learned how to shove her anger down in all those tribal meetings. "I thought that was why we were here, to heal Jacob, or am I mistaken somehow."

"No. I can't see what you can. Yes, we're here to heal him but not to put ourselves at risk, I thought that was the whole point of putting limits on what we'd do." I was losing this fight, because I had no real reason to block her from doing this other than deathly fear that she'd get hurt. She knew it too.

"I know why you and Sam don't want me anywhere near that blade, I do." She closed her eyes and exhaled, the tension started to leave her shoulders, "I don't really want to look at it, I don't want to see the death and the corruption but I have to if I want to help him. I won't touch it, I don't need to. I swear. Dean, please. Let me do my job."

"Isn't that how it always starts, just wanting to do our job?" There was so much compassion on her face, but she wasn't going to give ground on this. I wanted to tell her no, every inch of me wanted to, but there was a kid down the hall who we had a chance to save. Since she wouldn't back down I went for piling on as many restrictions as I could. "We do this this way then, you don't get a choice in this. I accepted limits, you do too. I'm going with you, I take it out of the warded drawer, I open the curse box, it stays in the box and you stay at the other end of the room. I show it to you. You get thirty seconds, I shove it back in the drawer and we leave. You move towards it, have a personality shift or go the least bit weird I throw it back in the drawer and we do not ever open it again. Are we clear?"

"Yes."

I was about to let it go at that but my instincts were screaming at me and I had no way to actually protect her. I wasn't going to go into this without trying everything I could keep of to keep her safe. "And I want one of your guides there, I don't care which one, the Coyote, Crow, whoever cares enough to show up." We'd talked quite a bit about her guides after I got introduced to the Coyote. I won't claim that I know what they are or aren't capable of but they had to be able to block her from getting taken over. I wasn't sure if she was pissed at me stepping over some serious boundaries and telling her how to run her side of things or offended that I thought her guides would come when she called like some sort of pets, or both. "Otherwise I'm not letting you do this."

"They aren't servants," she growled.

"I know, so what. I'm not about to let you walk into a set up like this without doing every damn thing I can think of to protect you. No guides, no blade. Glare at me all you like, I don't care."

"We're wasting time."

"He's sleeping, probably for the first time in weeks. If you're worried about time, you should get to chanting then shouldn't you." She went from utterly livid to expressionless, shit. "Sorry, last part was uncalled for. Point still stands though. Your choice."

"And if they don't come, then what?"

"Then we hit the books, we barely scratched the surface last night. Those were just the obvious ones. There's plenty more lore we can delve into."

She got this sneaky look in her eyes, "Don't we need to see what the blade looks like to help narrow it down?"

Time to think on my feet, "I figure we can send Clive pics of what we have already in the lore, he's seen it. Maybe he'll recognize something."

"And if not?"

"We'll figure something else out, maybe show Jacob pics and see if he reacts to anything." I had another idea but I wasn't going to tell her that. Sam or I could probably get a pic, I doubted anything else could have a stronger compulsion than the Mark and First Blade had and I wasn't a powerful Shaman, neither was Sam. I didn't want this blade anywhere close to her. I hadn't left her an out, which was pretty impressive since I'd cobbled this whole thing together on the fly. If I'd been closer to her I'm pretty sure I would have heard her teeth grinding.

"Fine. I will ask my guides." She emphasized asked, maybe even over emphasized it. "I need a room."

"Pick one. There's plenty down the hall." I'd won but it didn't feel all that great, especially when she stalked past me without another word. I watched her and waited until she'd disappeared into a room after gathering her things from the one we were sharing. Krissy still hadn't come back, she must be waiting for an all clear sign. I went outside and saw her leaning on the hood of her car looking guilty.

"I'm sorry Dean, I didn't mean to start problems between you and Coyote. I can take Jacob home and figure out something else. You've retired, I should have never called."

"It's fine, you were focused on helping Jacob, I don't blame you. Don't worry about it." That wasn't what I really wanted to say. No fights in a year and here we were, at each other's throats over a job. Was this even worth it? "You can go back inside, she's going to look at the blade but I set some pretty strict parameters before she gets a chance to. If she pulls it off then we'll probably have a decent idea on how to help him. If not, we'll figure something else out. Jacob's sleeping in the third room on the left. He didn't seem to be having any nightmares or anything. Can you send Sam out? I want to talk to him."

"Sure," Even though she was worried, finding out Jacob was still sleeping brought a smile to her face, "If you guys don't manage to do anything else for him, that's more than I've been able to do in a month. So, thank you."

"You're welcome."

She headed down the stairs. Sure, I was happy we'd gotten him to sleep a bit but that didn't mean a whole lot compared to the complete terror on his face when he was freaking out. I wanted to help him but I didn't want to lose anyone in the process, including, and this was the odd part, myself. And I used to be all about martyring myself to save the day.

Sam ambled his way up the stairs and shot me a speculative look, "Pyrrhic victory I take it?"

"Could be, depending on how up to helping her guides are."

"Her guides?"

"Yeah, told her she could look at the blade if I'm in the room, holding the box, she's on the other side with a guide. She only gets thirty seconds to look at and if things go sideways box is closed and we're done. No second looks."

It took him a second to process all that, "She went for that?"

"She may not talk to me for a day or two, but yeah she did. I didn't leave her any choice."

He winced, "Sorry. Guess this ruins the no fight streak huh?"

"You know, I could say it was bound to happen but the fact is if we were still home, it wouldn't." I couldn't bring myself to say it, even though it was true. I hated this, hated the tension, hated the shitty choices and most of all hated feeling like an asshole for hating it. Sam didn't say anything, he'd been here before. There was nothing really to say. I found myself wishing she'd fail, her guides would blow her off and we could move on. Which made me feel even worse, because I knew she'd succeed and if she ever found out I was hoping she wouldn't she'd kick my ass, and I'd let her.


	17. Things You Can't Unsee

"Think she'll get a guide to help her?" Sam asked.

I just looked at him.

"Yeah, stupid question. Research while we wait?"

"Why not. Better than standing around wishing I was somewhere else. Let's send Clive some of the shots of the pics of the blades we've found so far. Maybe he'll recognize one and give us a direction to go."

"Not a bad idea."

"Thanks." We got back inside, Sam went to work on snapping pics and texting them to Clive while I dug through some of the older files that dealt with Aztecs and Mayans. I was hoping for hints or crossovers with the Zapotec people, or just a general idea on rituals that were used to hook the priests in with their gods. Every religion has them, maybe I'd get lucky and find some sort of this priest screwed up so we exiled him ritual. If Jacob was still hooked into the blade somehow I was hoping to find some way to unhook him that didn't require Coyote going full on into his soul. While I was doing that I looked up a few things on soul retrievals, most of it was written by people who weren't actual Natives. Guess white people had figured out something similar and were doing them, before I got serious with Coyote that wouldn't have bothered me, now it kind of did. Natives have so little of their culture left to themselves it pissed me off that white people were trading on their rituals and using that to make cash. A lot of it sounded like psychotherapy, not an actual ritual so it didn't give me a lot of insight as to what to expect, I knew enough to know that the real thing would be a lot more intense.

Sam's phone went off as soon as he looked at the screen I knew it was something about the blade because he instantly started typing on the laptop. "Clive recognized one, well this explains the lunar cycle requirement, it's not a god it's a goddess. Huechaana - a mother goddess also associated with hunting and fishing along with being one of the creators of mankind and the world."

Of course, "Spectacular, so nothing major, no possible way a blade linked with something like that could rip out someone's soul." Couldn't be some minor, forgotten, loser deity like the god of dancing or parties. "Anything useful on the net?"

"No, but we have a name which means we can cross reference in the archive system and on the net. She's linked with some other deities. You hit the books, I'll dig into here some more."

"Sure thing," I started to stand up when the description Sam had given sunk into my brain a bit farther, "Wait, you said a goddess linked with hunting, right?"

He was preoccupied with whatever he was typing, "Yeah, why?" It took him a second but his eyes jumped up from the screen and met mine. "Oh hell."

Of course it was that exact moment Coyote reappeared with a huge, slightly see through crow on her shoulder. She was working hard to keep the smug look off her face, she knew that wouldn't be respectful to her guide but it didn't change the fact that she'd pulled it off and she was daring me to say anything that would throw another obstacle in her path. "So, where's the blade?"

Damn, damn, damn. Sam sent me a desperate look, he didn't want to give up the information, especially now. "Honey, we found out who it belongs to. Huechaana, random goddess. So we have a place to start and..."

"Don't even say it Dean. I met your requirements, Brother Crow will keep me safe," The Crow shifted on her shoulder and let out a rather loud squawk, giving us it's two cents on the topic, "Now, let me see the blade."

"Coyote, and uh respectfully to Brother Crow," Sam said, "This goddess is a goddess of the hunt and supposedly created man. We're just a bit..."

"I've had about enough of this," she snapped. "I am not some unskilled hunter playing with things they don't understand." That whole sentence was aimed straight at me, "I am a Shaman. I have one of the Great Spirits with me. I am more than capable of handling looking at some blade from another culture. For fuck's sake this isn't the first thing of power I have come across. Now, do you two want to help Jacob or do you want to sit here and cower in the damn corner worried about things that may not even happen?"

Brother Crow launched itself from her shoulder, landed on the table in front of me and tilted it's head so it could lock one of it's eyes with mine. I felt my fear for her fading away, "Hey, don't fuck with my head! I have a right to worry about her."

Coyote didn't seem to appreciate my tone, "Dean!"

The Crow shook it's head and did this weird hopping dance thing and the air started stirring around the table, pages in the books started flipping and one of the lamps took a nosedive off the table but Sam caught it before it hit the floor. The Crow hadn't touched the books or the lamps, "Okay, I get it. You've got some juice, doesn't make me any less worried, but fine. I set the rules, she followed them, she gets to see the blade."

Sam kept his mouth shut, which at this point I'd take as a win. What the hell else was I supposed to say? Sorry darlin', I know you went way out of your way to get one of your spirits to help out but I was just screwing with you. Yeah, that would have gone over well.

"Sam? Give. Where is it?"

"Room 12B, drawer 32c," I barely heard him, his words were heavy and filled with dread, "It's the box on top."

"Got it. Let's go." Brother Crow took off from the table and hovered alongside me as we walked down the halls, his wings never moved which was a bit unnerving since he was keeping pace with us just fine. It's not like there was an updraft for him to use to glide along either. I found the room and took a minute to look at her before I opened the door.

"Was there something?"

All I wanted right then was to hold her close, kiss her and somehow go back in time, I never wanted to piss her off or have a fight. I'd had enough of those with people I loved over the years, but I couldn't. "No. Let's get this over with."

"Yes, we should."

Brother Crow slipped in through the door as soon as I opened it, he circled around the room and landed in the dead center of the floor. Coyote stepped in and stood by the door as I'd told her to and I found drawer 32c and pulled it open. The box on the top was black and covered with various warding signs, some I'd never seen before.

"Ready?"

She closed her eyes for a moment and I could see her centering herself, when she opened her eyes again the Crow flared his wings and the temperature of the room shot up a several degrees. I guess he was prepping for anything this blade could throw at him, or them.

I lifted the box out, propped it up on the top of drawer so when I opened it it would be angled enough to allow her to see it and opened it.

Oil soaked, velvet soft whispers of death, life, pain and sacrifice whispered in my head; murmurings of an ancient language that I couldn't understand hummed in my ears. I felt the need to kneel before this raven haired, stunning woman who was standing by the door. I had to kneel, she was the Goddess's chosen one. The Goddess's instrument was in my hands, I must deliver it to her, it was my right as the next sacrifice.

A horrendous cry filled my ears, a giant Crow flew towards me, ripping the Goddess from me.

I slammed the lid shut, dropped it back inside the drawer, kicked it closed and backed away, "Holy hell!"

Coyote's hands were to her ears and Brother Crow was hovering in front of her, glowing. Somehow his wingtips were somehow touching her head and outstretched at the same time.

"Coyote!" I stopped myself from running towards her, mainly because the Crow's glare hit me before I moved a muscle.

Her face was contorted as she struggled against whatever the hell the blade put in her head. "Please come back, please honey, please." I wouldn't be able to handle it if she'd been hurt some way, turned catatonic like Jacob or ended up with more nightmares because of me. She sunk to the ground, the Crow wrapped his wings around her head and shoulders and I swore I felt a hot wind that felt and smelled like it had come straight from our back porch. I just about tasted the herb garden I'd taken over tending to, the cheat grass and prairie dirt. Then the voices came, all singing in Lakota, all distant like a storm gathering miles out across the plains. I don't know who or what Brother Crow was drawing on, spirits of Shamans or current ones but I'd never underestimate what her Spirit guides would be willing to do after this. I just hoped it worked.

His wings slowly parted and I got to see her face again, it wasn't as contorted but sweat was beading on her forehead. She slowly opened her eyes. "Dean?"

"Right here honey, right here. I'm fine."

A massive amount of relief spread across her face, "I, I thought..." her teeth started chattering.

I looked at Brother Crow, "Can I move closer?" He even looked like he'd gone through the ringer but he bobbed his head and moved to the side. I was next to her in seconds, she collapsed against me as soon as I got my arms around her.

"I thought, I had..."

"Shhh, shhh.."

She pulled away and ran her hands over my chest and throat, "No blood, no blood..."

"No, I didn't get close to you. It didn't happen."

Brother Crow placed his wingtip on my forehead, a thread of velvety rope that I hadn't even noticed still in my head slipped away. "Brother Crow, can you..." I caught myself, I wasn't a Shaman or even a Native, who the hell was I to ask him anything. He patiently looked at me, he'd helped me, cleared the compulsion from my head just as he had hers. That had to mean something, "Can you help with Jacob? He killed his family with that blade."

A shudder ran through him, I wasn't sure what that meant. I wasn't quite sure why he hadn't talked to me like the Coyote had when he'd told me about Azazel.

"Brother Crow says he was able to help us because we had not been taken over yet. We had not touched it," Coyote murmured, "Jacob touched it, killed with it. Gave himself over to her, therefore he bound himself to her. Brother Crow can't break a bond between a priest, even an unwilling one, and another God. I am bound to him, so he could prevent her from taking me over, interfere with her summons. You are bound to him through me so his protection extended to you."

That sounded awfully final, "Is there any way we can help him?" I'd never thought crows could shrug, but he did.

"He says he can't, not directly," Coyote continued, "Jacob may be able to refuse her, but we have to get him coherent enough to do so. He is not of her people, nor has the power of a priest. What I saw..." she shuddered against me but kept talking, "The sacrifices happen in threes. Jacob only killed two people. If he had killed a third the compulsion would be more likely to fade on it's own, or enough that we could easily break it. The blade does serve as a conduit for her, but it has a definite purpose, three deaths then it closes. Every lunar cycle it reopens whether or not someone touches it. If no one touches it, it goes dormant again. That was the sense I got from it."

"Well we can't let him kill again."

"Let me process this, please. There may be another way." She'd managed to get all that out even though her teeth had been chattering and her hands shaking the whole time.

"Right, sorry. Let's get you into bed."

She smiled, it was weak and forced but it made me feel a million times better. "Normally I'd be all for that," she said, "But I need to get back to the room I used to speak to Brother Crow in. I have to center, think."

"Got it. Am I carrying you or can you walk?"

"No need to break your back Babe, I'm not crippled, just weak."

I never thought the word Babe would make my entire week, but that one just had. "All right. I'll help you." She got her arm around my shoulders and we made our way back through the labyrinth that was the Bunker. Brother Crow rode on my right shoulder with his head tucked under his wing, guess the poor bird needed a nap after that. I couldn't blame him. I was kind of surprised he hadn't just left. "Hey, Coyote?"

"Yeah."

"Why is he still here?"

"He's going to help me sort through everything I saw. If I look at it through his eyes, not mine, it won't be as emotional."

That required a lot more faith in a deity than I'd ever had but her guides had been the only ones I'd ever met who seemed to actually give a shit about their followers so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Okay, makes sense."

I helped her into the room, being careful not to disturb anything she'd laid out and lowered her to the ground and stood there for a minute. She sat cross legged and seemed to gather some strength back, Brother Crow hopped off my shoulder and landed next to her.

"I'll come out when we're done," she instructed.

"Sure..." I couldn't leave it at that, "Love you."

She leaned against my legs, "You too. Sorry about getting pissed off earlier. You were right. I had no idea it could hit that fast or that hard. Thank you for keeping me safe, even when I'm being an utter bitch about how independent and strong I am."

I ran my hand over her hair, "Fair's fair, you keep me safe when I'm being an asshole about things. Besides, I have years of practice keeping people safe who don't think they need me to."

"True, let me get started. The longer I wait the harder it will be."

I bent down and kissed the top of her head, "Be careful. I'll be right outside if you need anything."

"Thanks."

She straightened up and I walked out. My hands were clammy, my mouth was dry and I had to lean against the wall as soon as I shut the door. "Thank you Brother Crow, thank you," I whispered. I was pretty sure I felt a wing brush my cheek as I heard a very oddly accented and soft, "You're welcome," in my head.


	18. Revelations

I was still leaning my head against the door when I heard footsteps. I tilted my head enough to see Sam's feet and expended the required energy to get upright and put my hand up before he spoke. I didn't want our voices to disturb Coyote so I walked towards him, he got the hint and backed up a few feet.

"We're okay, barely," I told him once I got closer. I hadn't expected it to hit me like that, if it hadn't been for Brother Crow I may have ended up with my throat sliced and Coyote standing over my corpse trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.

"You don't look that great. What happened?"

I filled him in, he was just as unnerved as I was. "That's really not good."

"I know. Go check on Krissy and Jacob, going to guess since she didn't come bolting out of the room he's okay but go make sure. I want to stay close to Coyote."

"Got it. Be back in a minute." He padded off down the hall and I returned to the door of the room Coyote was in. If I listened hard enough I could hear her voice rising and lowering in pitch. I didn't know if she was talking to Brother Crow, chanting or talking to herself but she didn't sound scared or weird so she must be working her way through whatever she saw. The sacrifices happened in threes which means Jacob's session was interrupted. If he was in some sort of Goddess induced limbo that would explain why he kept checking in and out of reality, he literally wasn't all here. Some part of him was off with that blade in who knows what alternate dimension with some bloodthirsty Goddess who was waiting for him to finish the job. If and when we got him back there was no telling how screwed up he'd be. Usually I don't think in ifs but how fast that thing hit Coyote and I, well this was a major league power, sure we'd dealt with things like that before but it usually took years to fix it and a lot of self inflicted hell. We were trying to avoid all that and fix it before Jacob hit puberty, which made things a lot more complicated. Logic would dictate that all we'd have to do is kill someone or something else to finish this and make the Goddess move on, but that wasn't really an option. I doubted she'd take a chicken as a substitute offering. I was still pondering alternate sacrifices, judging relative worth against a human when Sam reappeared. Maybe she'd go for a horse, they're big enough after all.

"Jacob twisted and turned a lot, whimpered a few times but stayed mostly asleep. Could be the fact that the room the blade is in is warded too, or whatever Coyote did to the room he's in or both but he's all right. Krissy asked what had happened, I gave her the highlight reel, she's not any happier than we are with this. She asked if she and Jacob should leave.." he paused for a second, "With you being retired and all."

"I already told her not to worry about it," I was retired, not useless or broken for God's sake. "What did you tell her?"

He got this put upon, not actually exasperated but pretending to be look on his face, "That it was too late, your hero complex wouldn't let you back down from a cursed object that tried to take you and your girlfriend out while holding some kid's soul in limbo. You'd find some way to Dean Winchester the shit out of this blade and save the day."

He meant it as funny but I wasn't really feeling it, "God I hope not, my trademark moves usually have a pretty fucked up ending."

That wiped even the gallows humor off his face, "Yeah, sorry. Trying to lighten things up a bit."

"I know. You stick to being the super analytical one and I'll be the smart ass, works better."

"Point taken. So what do I need to analyze?"

"See if this Goddess ever took anything other than humans as a sacrifice."

"Why? Wait," he caught up, "Interesting. I'll check it out. Anything else?"

"Not yet. Let's see what Coyote dredges out of what she saw before we get too set in stone on options."

"Sure," he started to walk away then stopped, "Hey, good call on the guide and limits with her."

"Yeah, saved our skins."

He gave me a rather long, appraising look, "Pre-retirement you wouldn't have done that, you know."

"Pre-retirement me didn't care about making it to the end of the day. Current me sort of wants to make it to next week, at least."

"Good, I like this new version. Stick with it."

"Plan to."

He smiled and left, I sat down on the ground across from the door, leaned my head against the wall and closed my eyes.I wasn't going anywhere till I knew she was safe.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I heard was her voice, "Babe? You awake?"

I guess I was a lot more drained than I realized. It's not like I'd actually done much, "Yeah. Everything all right?" She didn't look too wiped out and Brother Crow wasn't right next to her. "Did he leave?"

"He'd been here too long as it was and yes I'm fine, well as fine as I can be." She joined me on the ground and leaned against the wall, "Being around you seems to always bring new adventures doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I'm a regular Disneyland of all things dark and deadly. Sorry."

She frowned, "Stop apologizing. You didn't knock me out, stick me in the trunk and drag me here, I volunteered."

"I know but.."

Her hand went over my mouth and she twisted around to look right at me, "But nothing, no. Whatever happens on this job or any other thing like this we do in the future is not your fault Dean. If I volunteer, I accept the risks. That was the kind of thinking that led to the Mark, you know that. You are not my keeper, my protector or responsible for my welfare. Yes, you'll protect me, just like I'll protect you but if shit happens, it happens. You have to learn to accept that, please."

I tried to nod but I couldn't, it went so against the grain to just accept fate like that and she knew it.

She dropped her hand away, "I won't force a promise out of you, although I probably should, because I know even if you said yes to it deep down you'll be saying no, accepting limits on what you would do was hard enough for you, I know. I just don't want you to be blaming yourself anymore, you've done more than enough of that already. Anyway, topic switch."

At least she wasn't going to make this more uncomfortable.

"This Goddess, the blade, here's what I think is going on. All the usual vision and such caveats on this."

"Of course."

"Like I said earlier, happens in threes. I think that's why it hit us so hard, as far as the blade is concerned the ritual is still going, it's waiting, like an open channel. You get close to it, you pick up on it's signal. The Goddess herself I don't think is so much of an issue. Objects used repeatedly in powerful rituals pick up a power all their own, you know that. I get the feeling that this blade was used for centuries in their ceremonies, it, in itself has become a force to be reckoned with. All that death and power running through it strengthened it and it wants, no needs, the ritual to be finished."

That made me feel a little bit better, if we weren't actually tangling with a pagan god that would make things easier, hopefully. Because cursed objects always have off buttons and stuff...right. "Do you think any death would work, like an animal? I can hit up a local farm and grab a chicken or something."

She was nice enough not to laugh at me, "There's a rather large difference between the energy of a chicken and the energy of a human. We could try it I guess, but if it doesn't work whoever has the blade is going to have to fight the blade's influence. Unless you're planning on putting it back in Jacob's hands and wish for the best."

"We need to run all this by Krissy." I sure as hell wasn't going to make this decision without her. She'd basically become Jacob's guardian, it was up to her. "I sent Sam on a hunt to see if that Goddess ever took animal sacrifices, just in case. Do you think we could bypass all that and just try the soul retrieval idea you had?"

She hesitated, "I could but I doubt it would work with the blade still hooked into him. It was actively trying to get us to finish the ritual Dean," she got this sick look on her face, "I don't know what you saw but I what I saw, what I thought I did, or had to do."

"I know," I put my arm around her shoulders, "I wanted to give you that thing so you could finish the ritual. It was my right as the next sacrifice. You don't need to tell me, I felt enough to get a pretty clear idea of how it wanted things to go."

"Thanks," she took a second or two to get her mind back on track, "As far as the blade is concerned, Jacob's it's priest until further notice, safest thing to do is keep it that way for now. He's not violent, it doesn't seem to be able to impart any supernatural powers other than when the priest is holding it and we can contain him. If someone like you or I get our hands on it, could be a whole other set of circumstances to deal with."

Translate that to Shaman on a rampage or ex-vessel, ex-wielder of the Mark of Cain becoming immortal again and who knows what would happen if Sam touched it. I'd be willing to bet he's got more supernatural residue inside of him than I do. "All right, let's run all this by Krissy and go from there."

I got up first, helped her up and we held hands as we went back and joined Sam. We usually don't do that, hold hands, but I think we both needed the extra reassurance that we were sane and not pissed at each other. Jacob had woken up and he, Sam and Krissy were all sitting at the long tables. Jacob was actively flipping through the pages of the hardcover comic book Sam had shared with him.

Krissy looked up with a smile on her face as we got closer, "Jacob, this is Coyote and Dean. They're helping too."

I guess he was too out of it to remember the first introduction. He timidly turned his head towards us, flinched and looked away. "I saw you, in the bad place."

Both of us stopped walking.

"But you're not bad people, right?"

"No Jacob, we're not," Coyote assured him. "Do you want to talk about the bad place?"

He shook his head and flipped another page.

"All right, I understand," she continued, "Can we borrow Krissy for a minute? We need to talk with her. Sam can stay with you if you want."

He gave us a slight nod. Krissy got up. "Let's go outside," I said. I didn't want him to overhear and I needed to get some air anyway. Coyote's house looks out onto the plains, the Bunker's underground and even though it's not a small place by any means it felt claustrophobic not having any windows around me. You think the guy that grew up in motel rooms would never have that feeling, ever. Once we made it outside I just let Coyote take over.

"You fill her in honey, you have a better hold on this than I do."

"Sure."

She caught Krissy up, gave her the options we'd come up with and then let her mull on it for a few minutes. "When he woke up, he asked about that book."

"Really?" I asked. "Take it he hasn't done that since you got him."

She shook her head, "No, he never really seems to remember things. Maybe when it tried to take you over it let him go long enough for him to remember something? Maybe it quieted the blade somehow?"

"It's possible," Coyote said then looked at me.

Now, back in the day this would be the point where I'd volunteer to pick up the blade while Sam took Jacob somewhere safe, we'd argue about it, I'd order him to do it, he'd shut up and we'd both regret it later. I wasn't doing that this time. An idea hit me, "Maybe an actual death isn't needed. Just some one other than Jacob holding the blade."

"Dean?" Coyote challenged.

"Nope, not any of us. Not risking us but doesn't have to be."

"Huh? Not seeing a lot of other people around here."

"Didn't say it had to be a person either, anything with hands will work."

Both of them seemed to be thinking I'd lost my mind somewhere, they'd probably be sure of that once I clued them in. "We have a handy-dandy dungeon, we can track down a monster with hands, get the blade into their hands, get the link to Jacob to break and then kill said monster. Two birds, one stone."

Krissy smiled, "Not bad."

Coyote didn't smile, "Are you nuts?"

"Most of my best plans are slightly insane, in case you forgot."

She rolled her eyes, "Ignoring the time it would take to hunt, trap and imprison said monster, how the hell are you going to give them the blade without exposing yourself to it? And just what makes you think they'll take it?"

"Hunger." My mind had clicked back into hunter mode, "We may need two of them though."

Coyote threw her hands up, "Oh that's safer."

Krissy seemed to lose confidence with my idea at that point. "I'll text Sam to come up. Krissy, go watch Jacob for a minute, we'll fill you in."

"Uh, sure."

I texted Sam, he sent back he was on his way. Coyote stood there not talking but she really didn't have to, I could see how utterly ridiculous she thought this was. "Hear me out darlin'. It could work."

She crossed her arms and looked away.

Sam made it up the stairs, saw her, saw me and shook his head. "Fighting again? Not good."

"Not fighting, she just thinks I'm nuts."

"Well, yeah, you are," he said.

"Shut up and listen. Coyote says that the blade itself is the problem, not the Goddess. Blade's convinced that it's in the middle of a ritual, needs a third kill. Krissy said that Jacob woke up asking about that book, she thinks just the fact that the blade tried to take over Coyote and I gave him a break, at least enough of a one to let him remember. You heard what Jacob said, he's hooked into it for sure somehow if he saw Coyote and I. So it seems that to fix him, someone else has to pick up the blade. I won't and I sure as hell won't let either of you or Krissy. So, we need something with hands to do it. Enter monsters, I'm thinking vamps. Hunt down two of them, jack them up on dead man's blood, drain them, chain them up in the dungeon with enough chain to reach the box which is set right next to some bagged blood. They're working on instinct, one of them grabs the blade, kills the other. Blade, in theory gets it's kill or at least someone else holding it, let's go of Jacob, we kill vamps and do what we can to help Jacob heal the rest of the way. Job done, no one gets hurt, except the vamps. Problem solved."

Usually when I stun Sam into silence on a hunt it's because I've just set myself up for some horrible fate or he just found out that lied to him in some way again. I was hoping this time it was because of the sheer brilliance of my idea.

"Let me get this straight, you want to get two vamps, drug them, drag them back here, drain them and then give them a weapon that allowed a ten year old kid to cut inches deep into an adult's chest? You do remember the whole vamp super strength thing right?"

Well, there went that hope. "Yes, which is why they are chained up. Those chains have held demons and vamps before. Says so in the archives."

"You're also overlooking the fact that vamps are undead," Coyote piled on, "We don't know how they'll react to being taken over by the blade or if it would even work."

She had a point, "We don't know if us taking the blade and killing someone would work either. I'm going for the least dangerous to us option here. That's what all of you have been telling me to do right? Think safe? Don't expose myself or us to stupid risks. There are always risks in this life, you all know is the least risky risk I can think of. I don't know of a way to drug shifters or werewolves into weakened states, the only one that has that weakness like that and is fairly easy to find is vamps. Unless you guys want to put a fully human witch in chains and give her access to that kind of power? I'm sure that would work oh so much better. Vamps, when drained enough don't think, they just need to feed and kill as fast as they can. I'm hoping that along with the blade's need to have another death will keep anything else screwy from happening. You guys have any better ideas?"

Sam switched into a pretty passable imitation of Bobby's accent, "You're a special kind of crazy son."

"Maybe, but it's a different kind of crazy than I usually go for. You got to give me that at least."

"There is that," he said in his normal voice. He looked at Coyote, who'd gone from against this whole thing to at least willing to think about it now that I'd explained it more. She still wasn't all that thrilled with it though.

"How secure is that lock on the dungeon door? Those bookcases have any way to be locked into place?"

"The lock is tough as hell, but the door is wood. I hacked through one of them but it took some time. Don't ask," I told her. "The bookcases don't lock but we can rig something up that will work well enough to buy some time if need be."

"I don't know Babe," she didn't seem all that convinced. "What if that blade still calls to whoever is supposed to go in there and kill the surviving vamp and put the blade back in box?"

"The guy that was carrying the blade seemed to get in and out just fine," I pointed out.

"He'd probably dedicated himself to it or was protected somehow," she replied. "Not good enough."

"You know there's not going to be an answer for every possible situation here."

That didn't go down to well. "You wanted guides for me to just look at it and now you're willing to let vampires touch it and hope to hell it works? No, we can do better, we have to." It wasn't anger that was driving her, it was fear, the same fear I'd had earlier. The blade had shown her visions of sacrificing me and who knows what or who else, I couldn't blame her.

"Look, we don't have to leave right now to find vamps. We have time, but unless you guys come up with some other way short of killing someone to fix this I can't see another way to do this."

"How about this?" Sam offered. "We spend the rest of the day researching, we can't find anything else out we go with Dean's slightly less crazy than usual idea. I'm sure there's some amulet to ward against cursed objects in this place that we can wear or figure out how to make."

"I'm good with that," I said, "Darlin'?"

"I'll try to do some things with Jacob, see if I can find out more," she started out, "I don't like this, I don't but compared to the other options we have it's more feasible. Which I can't believe I'm saying."

"Hunter life, never a day goes by where you aren't stuck between a rock, a hard place and your worst nightmares," I reminded her. "Let's do this then."


	19. Old Lives, New Habits

A day of research got us an amulet that somewhat muted the blade's influence, an actual conversation with Jacob but nothing all that much more about the blade or the Goddess. Sam and I managed to distract the blade enough so that Coyote could ask Jacob some more questions that pretty much validated her theory that the blade needed another kill to go dormant. That had been an interesting few hours. Once Sam had found the warding spell Coyote had the idea to test it on Jacob first to see if it would get the blade unhooked from him enough to let her try a soul retrieval. We cobbled together an amulet made of cardboard and rope and put it around his neck, nothing changed. So Sam had the bright idea to have he and I wear it, open the box again and see if that distracted the blade enough to let Coyote do anything. If it hadn't been eight hours into researching Coyote and I probably would have put up more of a fight but by then she and I were both restless, tired of looking at books and not actually doing anything. Which is probably why we tend to get into a lot more trouble on hunts and in life then we should, after awhile we just say screw it and plow right into things.

"Just remember Sam, this was your idea," I told him when we walked into the room.

"Seeing as how I came up with less idea less than an hour ago, don't think I could forget, but thanks, really."

Krissy was stationed just outside the door with her taser that she carried when she was in places she couldn't have a gun. Her job was to knock one of us out if we got out of hand. If whoever wasn't convulsing on the floor went for the other one she had full permission to shoot that one, just preferably aiming for center mass or a leg.

I stayed by the door this time, Sam went to the drawer, "Ready?" he asked.

"As I'll ever be."

He nodded, pulled open the drawer and opened the box. I felt something, but it wasn't as strong. It was more of compulsion to take the blade somewhere then actually be sacrificed or kill someone, but I could handle it.

"Sam?" His eyes were locked onto the box, his hands tight on the lid. He took his right hand off the lid and it started moving towards the blade. "Sam!"

His hand stopped, "I'm...good." His right foot slowly moved back a step, he shifted his weight, pulled his hand away and forced his eyes to meet mine. I knew that look all too well, he was barely holding on, fighting it, but he's always been stronger than most people, including me tended to give him credit for. That was why I let him take the lead this time. One thing the Mark taught me, I'm just too cozy with violence. I'd spent a lot of time over the last year thinking about that and had come to terms with the fact that it's just who I am. I'll never know if I'm a born killer, I don't think that's a thing but I do know that I've always tended to speak with my fists first, unlike Sam. I think if I'd been the one that got the demon blood the Apocalypse would have ended a lot differently, a lot bloodier.

I raised my voice but didn't look away from him, "Coyote? Go, we'll hold out as long as we can." Krissy had an open phone line to Coyote who was in another room with Jacob.

"Got it," I heard her voice come back to me. Then she must have muted her phone because I didn't hear anything else.

"Sam, stay focused on me."

"Trying..."

Sweat started breaking out on his forehead, the compulsion had started getting stronger in my head too. "All right, next step." It seemed stupid when I'd suggested it, I said it as kind of a joke but Coyote thought it could work so Sam and I had decided to try. I made a toss off comment about exorcisms and chanting them and she pointed out that when she has anything psychically assault her that by repeating various chants she's learned over the years it gives her mind something to focus on that's all her. She pointed out that exorcisms are all about sending evil things away and we believe in them so they could help us fight the blade's influence and buy her some extra time to work with Jacob. So we figured what the hell and decided that if we manage to not be immediately blown away by the blade we'd start reciting the exorcism and see if it helped.

Sam forced himself to take another step back, took a deep breath and started.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus

omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio  
infernalis adversarii, omnis legio,  
omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.  
Ergo draco maledicte [*a]  
et omnis legio diabolica  
adjuramus te.  
Cessa decipere humanas creaturas,  
eisque aeternae Perditionis venenum propinare."

I joined in, the compulsion started to fade and I saw Sam relax, not a whole lot, but enough.

We made it through one whole round and started it a second time when Coyote's shout came through the phone, "Guys, put it back! Now!"

Sam jumped, closed the lid, slammed the drawer and sagged against the wall, "That was...damn."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Jacob started reacting, eyes went blank and he tried to attack me. I'm fine."

"Damn it!" Krissy said, "Is he back to how he was when we first showed up?"

"No, he's crying but still with is. I got some answers. I'll try to get him to sleep again then we can talk."

"I'll be there in a second," Krissy said. She hung up, Krissy jogged down the hall and I walked over to Sam.

"You all right?"

He gave me a shaky smile, "Yeah, nothing I haven't been through before. Just need a second to let it clear."

"Know what you mean." I was still shaking the urge to pull the blade back out and run with it. "It was different this time, it just wanted me to take it to someone, not to you specifically. What did you see?"

There was a hint of how he'd looked when he was soul less in his face, this cold, calculating gaze that had been my first clue something was wrong with him when Cas had brought him back from the Cage. "Let's just say being a goddess of the hunt can mean a lot of different things. It's not important." The coldness faded and he stood up.

"Let's have Coyote give us both the once over when we get back," I suggested, "Just in case."

"Sure."

She assured us we were fine and told us that getting the blade unhooked from Jacob while it was still in this state was probably beyond her abilities, even with guides and she wasn't too happy to admit that either. "It's just too deeply embedded in him. Even in a warded room and him being far away it still affected him, I'm sorry."

"Guess we're hitting the road Sam," I said.

"No," Krissy objected, "I can't let you do that Dean. You're out, stay out. I'll handle this, he's my responsibility."

"I can call Roy or another hunter," Sam added, "Get some vamps, bring them back and then Coyote can come back and do what she can when the blade's turned off."

I was getting a bit tired of this, "Roy's on vacation with Thea and there's no point to have Coyote and I head home just to have her come back later. I'm not crippled, emotionally traumatized or so broken that I can't hunt a few vamps. Seriously! This whole option was my idea, I'm going to see it through so shove the concern and let's find some vamps." Sam and Coyote's eyebrows both went up at the same time, and Krissy crossed her arms. I took a step towards them and shoved a finger into Sam's chest, "Don't make me pull rank and age here people. I'm the oldest and I was hunting way before some of you were even born, so we're doing this my way, got it?"

This crooked half smile broke out on Sam's face, "I'm not sure if I've missed that attitude because my life's gotten kind of dull lately or because that whole birthday party made me nostalgic and I kind of want to hit the road with an obnoxious jerk again."

Coyote's shoulders started shaking even though she was managing to keep a straight face, "He always was cute when he got all belligerent and cranky."

Krissy finally just laughed, "Aww, grumpy old step dad is back."

I'd expected a bit more of a fight but I wasn't going to push my luck, "Damn straight. So let's hit the net, find some weird kills."

"Don't have to," Sam said, "I'll send out an email to the hunters, see if someone is on a trail of a nest and if we can take over."

"What?"

He winked, "I've been hanging out with Felicity for the last year, I'm all about tech and efficiency now. Organized a mailing list of everyone, we update each other on what's going on, team up, exchange ideas all that. Takes a lot of the tedium out of this. How do you think Roy and I can pull off three hunts in two weeks? We've got some hunters that all they do is scour the net for leads on jobs. Instead of driving all the way across three states we can hit two or three in the same state, go home and take a break."

"Wow, really? Show me." I sat next to him and scanned all the emails, there were lists of links organized by state, possible monsters and a bunch of other things. Some hunters seemed to be just staying in certain areas, others traveled all over the place. On the one hand it was awesome to see how much good was getting done and on the other it was eye opening to see just how many monsters were out there. "They just don't ever seem to end. I mean look at all these hunts. You'd think we'd run out of monsters eventually."

"You'd think," Sam agreed. "Let me scroll through, see if I can find any likely nests close by."

I let him take over the keyboard and looked up at Coyote, she looked pensive, which isn't a normal thing for her. I was about to ask what she was thinking about when Sam spoke up.

"Found one,"

"That fast?" Damn, things had changed a lot over the last year.

"Yup, your buddy Gerald has a pretty good lead on a nest over in Oklahoma. I told him we need some vamps to save a kid from a curse," he paused and let out a sharp, quick laugh, "he apparently knows you pretty well. He asked if you were in on this, said he missed you and Coyote out at the construction site and all the Natives were pretty clueless as to where you guys were. All they said was you'd had to leave for a family thing. Should I tell him?"

"Sure."

Sam typed something and then smiled, "He says he'll share this time and he hopes your out of shape ass stays safe. Wants you to call him when we're done to check in."

Since I have Gerald's contact info I texted him, "Shut up asshole. I'll still take you down any day."

"You wish," he sent back. "Keep an eye peeled. This nest is cagey."

"Got it." I replied. "He says this nest is a bit smarter than most, so to keep our eyes peeled."

Sam usually doesn't do smug or over confident, but this time he did. "Well, we've gotten a bit smarter too."

It'd been a long time since my adrenaline had spiked this way, it wasn't fear based really. Sam's smile and the glimpse I'd gotten into the new way he'd been handling things got me curious, and kind of excited to see what he had up his sleeve. "New toys?"

"There are perks to knowing a millionaire vigilante who works with a tech genius. C'mon."

"Coming darlin'?" I asked Coyote.

She shook her head, the pensive look cleared but wasn't replaced by a smile, "No, you go ahead. I'm kind of beat. Didn't sleep really well last night. I'm going to go lay down while you go drool over Sam's toys."

That bothered me, "You feeling all right?"

"Yeah, just long drive yesterday, long day today." She gave me a quick kiss, "Go play. Wake me up later."

"I'll go keep an eye on Jacob," Krissy said. "Check in before you take off."

"Okay. Lead the way Sam," I had noticed some new things in the back of Baby when we'd moved everything to his car but hadn't really been in the mood to ask, now things were a bit different. I followed him into the room he'd turned into an armory and for a second there I thought I was in Oliver's club. It was spotless, there were arrows and a bow lining one wall, a couple of crossbows, a bunch of odd looking bullets, some things that looked like darts and a few other weapon-ish looking odds and ends that I had no clue what they were for. "Oh man, you've got to give me the tour." I felt like a kid at Christmas.

"The bow is Roy's of course,"

"He's still not using guns?" That kind of surprised me.

Sam shrugged, "He's better with a bow. Some of those are silver arrow heads for weres and such, some are iron tipped and we even engraved Devil's traps on a few just in case we do come head to head with a demon. So far we haven't had to use those. Felicity found a place where we can custom order bullets so I don't have to sit here and make them which is nice, so I've got bullets for pretty much any occasion already made. Those dart looking things we can shoot from a shotgun, we fill those up with Dead Man's blood and get a couple in our vamps to take them down, or if you want to go old school we have some of the arrows Oliver uses for his tranquilizer arrows that we can use. They're empty, all we have to do is dump the blood into them. Then some of this stuff is defensive, she worked with this engineer to create a quick release protection circle." He picked up this metal tube thing, "Stand back a few feet." I moved back, he pushed a button, set it on the ground and stepped back a few feet. A few seconds later a thin strand of something shot out in a perfect circle. "Pure iron chain, really thin but that's all you need to keep ghosts out, no need to carry boxes of salt around."

"And they can't stir the wind up and break it either," I was almost jealous of him having all the new toys. "Nice!"

"Oh and some of those arrows have iron cable in them so Roy can shoot them across a room, tie off the other end and we can block them from entering a room too."

"Oh man! That I gotta see!"

"Sure." He picked up one of the crossbows, selected an arrow, set it in the bow, clipped something to a hook on the back of the bow, aimed it at a spot of empty wall across the room and fired. I heard this hiss as the arrow flew by me and saw it trailing a very thin line. It hit the wall and dug in deep. He unhooked the line and hooked it around an arrow that was still in the rack.

I saw a problem though, "What if you don't have something to hang that other end on?"

He smiled, "We carry staple guns. Two seconds. Even brick houses have some sort of wood in them. Cool huh?"

"Wow," I was starting to understand how they'd managed to make it through the last year unscathed, "I'm seriously jealous right now."

He laughed, "Good. I don't get to show the toys off all that often so I'm glad you approve. Oh we have one like this made of out silver too, werewolves tend to not like it all that much. If we get chased we lay it out across a path and hope they hit it. I keep asking for a silver net arrow thing but since there's really no way to reload that Oliver keeps telling us no. He's funded a lot of this so having to pay for a few nets made out of silver is a bit more than he's willing to dish out. Roy was pretty bummed about that."

"Oh you were bummed too, I'm sure."

"Well, yeah, maybe a little."

I laughed and took a closer look at the weapons stash, it was a lot different than when I'd been hunting but more useful in a lot of ways. Sam and I had relied a lot on blades and bullets which made sense for our style of fighting back then, up close and in your face. Roy was drawing ideas from how Oliver trained him to fight and Sam was using all his resources to adapt tools to work with Roy's strengths. It seemed to be working pretty damn well actually.

"Those darts have got to make taking a nest out pretty easy. You shoot them up from a distance, wait till it takes affect and go in with machetes."

"Usually."

"Guess we need to get to a morgue then, get us some blood."

He walked to a small fridge that I'd been too distracted by the weapons to notice, "Not really. Another perk of working with Oliver." He opened it up and there were several bags of blood.

"They raiding morgues for you now too?"

All the humor left his face, "No. Roy gets it."

That sent a chill through me, Roy wasn't a killer and I hoped to hell he hadn't become one.

"Explain."

"There are always those criminals that keep getting released back out into society, for whatever reason. They tend to get back into trouble, if Roy happens to come across a dispute between them and some other member of the criminal element that gets violent, well, let's just say he draws his arrows out a lot slower then usual." His face was dead serious, "His view is that if their blood can be used to stop monsters they're finally doing some good in the world. Some people are more useful dead than alive."

"But he's not killing them."

"Not as far as I know."

There were quite a few bags of blood and I knew that they'd been concentrating on vamps a lot more, "Good and he's probably right."

Sam nodded, closed the door and leaned against the counter, "All the toys and everything aside Dean are you sure you want to hunt with me again? I do things a lot differently now and I don't intend to go back to our old way just because you're riding with me on this one."

It was a fair question, "You said it yourself, you and Roy have made it through a year with no real problems. I'm not planning to come back for the long haul, just this job. Sure it was my idea but this will be your hunt. You run it, I'll back you."

Some sort of tension that I hadn't noticed left him, "Honestly?"

"This old dog's willing to learn a few new tricks. Plus you have new toys, you think I'm not going to want to play with them?"

He chuckled, "We're not hunting ghosts Dean."

I shrugged, "Well, if we happen to find one along the way..."

"Coyote's going to kill me."

"Nah, she'll want to play with it too."

"Probably." He looked at his watch, "Do you want to head out now or tomorrow? It's getting late, probably an eight hour drive too."

"Let's get some sleep, head out early."

"All right."

We started to leave the armory when I stopped him, "Hey, question."

"Yeah?"

"You all seemed to give in pretty quick on letting me do this all of a sudden. Why?"

"Because you're thinking, not reacting. The thing with the Coyote and her guides, this whole plan, having Krissy watch us when we went in to look at the blade and now, letting me run things. You've changed how you view hunting. Coyote, Krissy and I have been talking about it all day when you'd leave the room. We all knew you'd want to hunt the vamps but since you've been smart about things we're not as worried about you. We didn't want to just roll over and say yes though, pushing your buttons was more fun."

"Gee thanks," Oddly enough though, I was a lot more relaxed about the thought of going on a hunt that I'd thought I'd be. I didn't know if it was good or bad necessarily but it was different. Maybe because the pressure wasn't on me like it always had been before. Whether or not other things put the pressure on me or I put it on myself I wasn't feeling it, and that at least felt good. "Guess I'm riding shotgun then since we're taking your car."

"Yes!" He actually jumped up and pumped his fist in the air when he said that, "I get to pick the music, fucking finally!"

"Don't get too.."

"Hey! Driver picks the music, shotgun does what?"

"Shuts his cakehole," I grumbled, while trying not to laugh.

"Exactly! Not a word Dean. Not one word."

"Don't you pick the music when you and Roy go hunt?"

"Not the same, and you know it."

Fine, whatever." Tomorrow was going to be interesting, that's for sure.


	20. How Things Change

We locked up the armory, I left it to Sam to check in with Krissy and Jacob and I headed into my room to curl up next to Coyote. Sam and I planned to leave before sunrise so I wanted to get as much sleep as I could. We wanted to get to the nest early, track the vamps, try to take them out fast and get back. Gerald had texted Sam and I a few addresses where he thought the nest was, he hadn't been able to narrow it down yet as the vamps had been using a few different houses as places to hole up. They'd been smart in splitting up their numbers and he was worried about taking a few out and the other's noticing. As I was walking down the hall I got another text from him saying that a few other hunters were interested in helping since the nest was pretty big so he was going to stay and help. The rough plan was to split the houses up and nail them all at the same time, wiping out the whole nest between us. He'd counted about ten or twelve vamps total. If I still had the Mark, that would have been a walk in the park, now, not so much. I was getting more and more curious as to how Sam was running hunts now. It seemed that he'd gotten hunters to put aside their usual independent nature and work together a lot more over this last year, which, if nothing else, must really be pissing Crowley off. Sure, Sam wasn't tangling with demons face to face but I seriously doubted he wasn't somehow coordinating other hunters who were. Hell, for all I knew he was running online exorcism classes now. Wouldn't surprise me one bit.

I opened the door to my old room as quietly as I could, I didn't want to wake her up. I got undressed, got into bed, laid my arm over her waist and closed my eyes. She didn't say anything but I felt the tension in her muscles, she wasn't asleep. "Do you want to talk about it babydoll?" I asked. The fact that she hadn't said a word even though she was aware I was there kind of worried me.

"When are you leaving?"

"Before sunrise, Gerald has a bead on a pretty large nest. He's recruiting a few other hunters. Sam has a whole armory full of new toys, which I am jealous of now by the way, but it should go pretty smooth. Sam's running the hunt, I'm riding shotgun. He's way too happy about that since he gets to pick the road tunes this time. I'll probably come to regret building him that car by the end of this." I tried to lighten things up some, but she wasn't going for it.

"Sam tell you we'd been talking about you during the day?"

"Yeah, not sure how I should take that, but I'm not surprised. Don't blame you."

She rolled over, "You're letting him take the lead?"

She'd put her hair in a loose braid but there were a few strands across her face that I brushed away from her eyes. "Yeah, he told me he wouldn't go back to our old way of doing things and his way seems to work pretty well. I told him that the old dog would be willing to learn some new tricks."

Her hand slowly moved across my face, tracing along my cheeks and forehead. Normally that would be a start of something a lot more intense but there was so much worry in her eyes I didn't move, just let her do what she felt she needed to. I knew I couldn't really soothe her fear away, she knew too much about the life for me to to try to dismiss what she was feeling. "I may have been wrong."

"About what?"

"Before we came I told you that doing this wouldn't help you heal but what I saw today, how you've been listening to everyone, letting other people take charge. I never thought you'd be capable of that on something like this. At home it's different, you let people take charge because you don't know that world, you had to learn, try to fit in. But this? This is your world, but you aren't rushing back in. It's good for you."

"But you're still afraid."

She gave me a lopsided smile, "Well, you are going to be hunting vampires."

"True, but that's not what you're scared of."

"Babe, I'll be scared until you and Sam are back and I know that you're not lost in some way."

"I won't let myself get like that again, I promise." I kissed her, "I'm starting to understand why Sam and Roy hunt like they do. I never would have looked at hunts like that, but I've always had certain ideas of how things are supposed to go. Sam's got different influences going on now, good influences, more strategic ones. There's a lot of reasons I'm letting him take charge, not just to limit myself."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm still feeling my way through them but let's just say that the people I learned to hunt from weren't all that keen on seeing it as a job." She'd never asked too much about Dad, she knew Bobby of course but he was a lot less intense than Dad had been. I'd patterned myself after Dad and with the way we grew up, what we faced, we'd never had a choice to see the job as just that, not a life. I was starting to see how it could be a job, not something that you sacrificed every damn thing you wanted for. "Sweetheart, this isn't Sam and I against the world, we've got help and wiping out the nest is just part of a solution, not the goal. I have to come back in one piece to help Jacob, that's the whole point after all. I won't tell you not to worry, I know better, but I'll be playing this a lot different than before. Trust me."

Her lips pressed against mine, I put every last bit of love I felt for her into that kiss. She pulled back after a minute or two, "I do, always have, always will.

"You could come you know," I offered.

"Thanks, but I need to stay here. I want to keep trying to get Jacob more stable and Krissy needs a break. I know she's got the other kids helping her but she's exhausted. I can get him to sleep if nothing else and give her a chance to sleep herself."

"All right," Her eyes were pulling me in and my mind started swimming. To be here, in the Bunker, where so many fucked up things had happened, while laying next to the person who'd brought so much good into my life really drove home just how much my life had really changed, how much I'd changed. Our life on the Reservation, my life with her, wasn't some surreal break from hunting, it was my life and nothing would ever change that. I'd been deathly afraid that I would walk through the doors here and just morph back into who I'd always been, but I hadn't. I'd been able to stop myself, to see all those patterns for what they were and push them away. Something inside of me melted away, some knot of fear and I had the stupidest urge to start laughing, which really wasn't the best thing to do but I couldn't really stop myself.

She frowned at me, "What's so funny?"

I shifted so she was underneath me and kissed her hard, with something a lot more primal than love behind it. "I love you Running Coyote and not a damn thing in this, or any other damn world will change that. I'm yours and all that darkness crap, it's done, because all that matters to me is to end up right here, next to you."

A large amount of worry left her eyes and her hands snaked around my neck, "Careful Winchester, that sounds a lot like a declaration of intent."

"Did it? Good." I'd never been with someone that I felt like I couldn't get enough of. It didn't matter if we were as close as was humanly possible, I always wanted more. I wanted to touch her more, smell her more, taste her more. I'd run my hands over every inch of her plenty of times but it didn't matter because I always felt something different everytime I did, some new emotion, or found some new way to get a reaction out of her. There'd been quite a parade of women in my life, a lot of them I didn't remember their names, or even their faces anymore, which doesn't say anything all that great about me. I could blame the life I guess, but Sam had been raised in the same circumstances and was completely different. Fact was it had been my choice. I'd seen what losing a wife or lover could do twice, up close and personal. I'd decided early on that the pain wasn't worth it. I saved all of my emotional ties for Sam, it's why he was the only thing I held onto over the years. What I never understood till this last year was that letting all that go, all those fears was the only way to rebuild myself, try to regain some sense of self. Maybe fate had finally tossed me a good hand with the job that had brought Coyote back into my life, giving me a second chance. I didn't know but it didn't matter, what I felt as we moved together went far beyond anything I'd allowed myself to feel before, ever. I felt whole, for the first time in my life and no lurking memory of a demon or monster was going to stop me from feeling that way. Not anymore.

There aren't wolves in our neck of the woods but I thought I caught the sound of a distant howl, it wasn't a lonely, sad sounding one either, it was quite the opposite actually. Or maybe it was all in my head.


	21. Brother Dearest

My alarm went off. Usually when I hear that annoying sound, it irritates me, this time I woke up with a smile on my face. Coyote, not surprisingly, had picked up when my mood shifted the night before and it had finally settled into my bones that our life together was what my life had become. As soon as she had, something had broken loose in her as well, some wall or block that she'd been holding onto. I'd never be able to describe or explain what had happened between us after she let whatever it was go; all I knew was that it had bound us closer together, I could feel her in my soul, my Spirit. I've had a lot of things paw at, rip, shred and warp my soul, but not once had something or someone fed my soul like she does.

She mumbled and nestled her face deeper into my neck, "Five more minutes," she muttered.

"You don't have to get up."

"Yeah, I do. I want to see Sam's face. You know he spent half the night figuring out a playlist to torment you with."

"You had to go and ruin my morning already?"

She chuckled and kissed my neck, "I have faith you'll survive."

"He might not though."

"Now, now. Be nice."

"Yeah, yeah." I kissed her forehead and forced myself to get out of bed. I really, really didn't want to, but she was right, Sam was going to go nuts on this hunt. In a twisted way I was looking forward to it, I'd put him through enough crap over the years, it was about time he got to get some of that back. I cleaned up, got dressed and shuffled out to the kitchen, it was too damn early to actually walk. At least until I had some coffee in my system. Here was a shocker, Sam was already up, dressed and halfway through his breakfast.

"Morning!"

He was perky, dangerously so, "Did you get your torture Dean playlist all set up?"

"Hmm?" He was trying, but his eyes gave it all away, "Have no idea what you're talking about. Just want to get on the road."

"Uh-huh, sure." I grabbed some eggs, bacon, toast and coffee and joined him at the table.

"I packed everything up already," he said, "So once you get functioning we can bail."

"That excited to get on the road?"

His poker face started to slip, "First hunt in my new car, you're by my side. What's not to be excited about?"

I decided to play along, I knew he was stoked about the car so he wasn't exactly lying, "Got a point there." I debated dragging ass through breakfast just to screw with him but we had work to do. So I chowed down and was finishing my coffee when Coyote joined us, she'd just thrown a robe on over her sleep wear.

She took one look at Sam and smiled. "Well aren't you chipper."

"Virgin hunt in the Mustang," he said, "Are you coming?"

"No, going to stay here, monitor Jacob and try to give Krissy a break. Besides, this is most definitely a Winchester family moment."

He frowned, "You are family, I mean, you are my sister-in-law after all."

That got her, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped open, "I, well," Sam saying that on top of what had happened between us the night before hit her hard, in a good way. She wrapped her arms around him and lightly kissed the top of his head, "Thank you Sam. That means so much, but this is a boys trip. Next hunt or road trip, I'm coming with, trust me. I love the way she sounds."

He pressed his head into her stomach, hugged her back and nodded, "Sure thing. We're all set to go, just waiting for slow ass over there to get moving."

"All right, all right. Let me pack my shit and we can head out. Sheesh." I made it back to the room, gathered up two days worth of clothes, my shaving kit and shoved it all in my bag then went back. "Let's do this."

Coyote slipped her arm through mine as Sam walked ahead of us, headed up the stairs and opened the door. A pretty brisk breeze pushed it's way in, "I always did love pre-dawn, cold ass winds." I said. Sam stepped out, Coyote held me tight for a second then let go. I followed Sam and she came up behind me. "You should head back in," I told her, "It's cold."

"Please, you made it through a winter on the Rez, this ain't nothing. Besides, this I want to see."

Sam walked to the car, started pulling the passenger side open and stopped, "Oh wait, that's your side. I forgot."

"You realize you sound like you're ten right now?" I said as he stepped around to the driver's side with a grin on his face.

"Once again, not caring."

I looked over my shoulder at Coyote who was smirking at me, "You boys have fun and remember, you're supposed to kill the vampires, not each other."

"Spoilsport," I grumbled as I got into the car.

He set his phone up with the aux cable and plugged it in. I started wishing I'd put something alcoholic in my coffee, the car started but no music came on. I looked out the window at Coyote who winked, waved and walked back down the stairs, leaving me alone with Sam and whatever sound induced trauma he was going to subject me to. He pulled out and started down the street to the highway, still no music was playing, "Stretching out the moment?" He didn't answer. Crap.

We hit the freeway, his hand went to his phone and the most hideous mix of country, pop and a mutilated hint of rock poured out of the speakers. It started out somewhat decent with just the lyrics and clapping, then it went downhill fast.

 _"Nah nah honey, I'm good_  
 _I could have another but I probably should not_  
 _I got somebody at home_

 _It's been a long night here, and a long night there_  
 _And these long long legs are damn near everywhere_  
 _(hold up now)_  
 _You look good, I will not lie_  
 _But if you ask where I'm staying tonight_  
 _I gotta be like oh, baby, no, baby, you got me all wrong, baby_  
 _My baby's already got all of my love_

 _So nah nah honey, I'm good_  
 _I could have another but I probably should not_  
 _I got somebody at home,_  
 _And if I stay I might not leave alone_  
 _No, honey, I'm good_  
 _I could have another but I probably should not_  
 _I gotta bid you adieu_  
 _To another I will stay true_  
 _(ooh ooh I will stay true)_  
 _(ooh ooh I will stay true)"_

I grit my teeth, literally, two lines into the chorus my jaw started hurting. Sam was too busy bouncing and bopping along to the beat in his seat to hear the layers of enamel I was grinding down. He even started snapping his fingers and singing like it was the best song he'd ever heard.

He slapped my leg, "C'mon Dean, it's catchy! Perfect song to get things rolling. Wakes you right up, and it's about hot chicks. How can you not like it?"

I had sold my soul for him, bartered with Death to bring his soul back from the Cage and stopped him from dying instead of closing the gates to Hell, but at that moment, I really wanted to strangle him.

 _"Now better men, than me have failed_  
 _Drinking from that unholy grail_  
 _(Now check it out)_  
 _I got her, and she got me_  
 _And you've got that ass, but I kindly_  
 _Gotta be like oh, baby, no, baby, you got me all wrong, baby_  
 _My baby's already got all of my love"_

I forced myself to not choke the life out of him and closed my eyes. I had to admit the lyrics were ironically appropriate for this trip. No more picking up chicks in dive bars and strip joints for me. I didn't think I'd mind that one bit. After the bridge and the endless repetitions of the chorus the song ended, I'd managed to not kill him or say anything. I was rather proud of myself.

"So, you like it?" He asked.

I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the flask of Holy Water, twisted the cap off and threw water directly into his face.

He spluttered, jerked the wheel, recovered and wiped the water out of his eyes, "What the hell?"

"Just checking. If Alastair had had that song in Hell I wouldn't have lasted thirty years, probably wouldn't have lasted past the second time he played it. I figured since you liked it so much you might be possessed and torturing me for fun." I threw another splash of it at him, because I could.

"Son of a bitch!" He snarled.

"Hey, that's my line! Bad enough you're driving and picking the music, you can't steal my lines too."

He glared at me, I glared right back. Water was dripping down his face, the front of his shirt was kind of soaked and the front of his hair was damp. I faked like I was going to splash him again, he tried to bat the flask out of my hands. I held onto it but ended up splashing water all over my lap. "Son of a bitch Sam, really? C'mon!"

He tried to keep the glare going but busted out laughing instead. Eye of the Tiger came on, which brought back that stupid hunt where I got ghost sickness.

"You and that cat," he got out in between trying to breathe.

I gripped the flask close to my chest and put on my best utterly terrified look, "I'll man the flashlight."

Tears were streaming down his face, I finally gave in and lost it too.

"Oh man," he said after we about died laughing, "We did such stupid shit back then."

"Yeah, we did."

I didn't know the next song that came on but it was actually halfway decent. It was one of those songs, like anything by Tom Petty, that made for perfect cruising music. "Hey, what's this?"

"Canyon Moon, Andrew McMahon. You like this one?"

"Yeah, love the piano line." I put the flask away, leaned back and got into it a bit more. "Good road song."

"A lot of his are, Roy turned me onto this guy."

When it ended I played it again, there was something about it that stuck in my head. It wasn't catchy so much as a song that seemed too short. As soon as I got the feel for it, it ended.

 _"The sun ran out on a cold October_  
 _Somewhere under the canyon moon_  
 _Camera jammed in a slow exposure_  
 _California in her rear view_

 _She couldn't handle another season_  
 _Another ocean of fiction blue_  
 _Said a prayer to a dashboard Jesus_  
 _Death Valley and worn out shoes_

 _Then the road turned into desert everywhere_  
 _The sun ran out on a cold October_  
 _She disappeared, she disappeared_

 _Take all your troubles, put them to bed_  
 _Burn down the mission, the maps in your head_  
 _Shot like a bullet, don't know the way_  
 _The ricochet, kind of got away from you_

 _The leaves are falling, the church bells ringing_  
 _Marching band in a high school dream_  
 _Little town and a faded beauty_  
 _They still remember when she was queen_

 _Then the road turned into desert everywhere_  
 _The leaves are falling, the church bells ringing_  
 _She disappeared, she disappeared"_

We didn't talk as I listened to it the second time. "Yeah, I could go for hearing more of his stuff."

"Really? Cool."

"You know, I have expanded my music tastes since moving in with Coyote," I informed him.

"About damn time. I mean the 80s were great and all but it was starting to get embarrassing."

"That's my childhood you're talking about," I warned.

"Exactly. Time to move on."

I didn't think he was just referring to my music choices, "I have."

He sent a quick look my way, "I noticed. That was a pretty intense reaction from her when I said she was family. I thought she already understood that."

"We had, well..." I had no way to explain it to him that wouldn't sound lame somehow.

He turned down the music and took a longer look at me, "Oh. You asked?"

"Not in so many words, more like told her how deep this goes with me. She, us, that's my life now. Not just some dream I'm afraid I'll wake up from."

"It hit last night?"

"Yeah. Being here with her, I don't know. It just clicked finally."

I felt the car slow down, then he pulled over, "And you still want to do this?"

He left the car running and I got the distinct impression that he was more than willing to turn around, take me back and go do this without me if that's what I felt was the best option. "Yes, not because I have to, because I want to. It's a job, not my life. I'm starting to get it, how you and Roy manage to keep yourself separate from what you do. How you could quit the life and go to school or be with Amelia. I followed in Dad's footsteps way too much. You always knew that, but I never saw it. I do now. I can hunt but not be a hunter. At least not a hunter like Dad and even Bobby were."

I expected him to hug me or get all emotional but he didn't, he put the car back into gear and pulled onto the road again. "Sometimes Dean, riding shotgun gives you a lot clearer picture of what's really going on than when you're driving."

I'd heard a lot of advice and profound sounding things over the years, that pretty much topped them all.

(First song: Honey I'm Good - Andy Grammer)


	22. Old Roads, Different Paths

Turns out he hadn't dedicated a whole playlist to turning this trip into a musical torture chamber for me. The next songs that came on were a mix of good old standbys and new stuff that he'd figured I'd like.

"So why'd you wait til we hit the freeway before you played that crap song?"

He shrugged, "Figured you wouldn't tuck and roll if we were doing eighty."

He knows me way too well, "Oliver and Roy are bad influences on you, you're thinking you're way through things like this way too much now."

"Actually, that was more Dig's influence then either of them. He and I spend a lot of time talking strategy on hunts when I'm over there. He is former military after all."

"Oh yeah, I forgot." That made a lot of sense actually.

"So's Lyla actually, that's how her and Dig met, they were in the same unit back in the day."

"Really? I didn't know that." Which explained why Lyla had always seemed pretty solid. I knew she did some sort of top secret, black ops stuff for the government but never asked for details.

"They have some interesting stories."

"I bet." My brain was churning through all of that, adding that in with the things Roy had said a year ago when he wanted to hunt with Sam and I, then decided to keep hunting. "Huh, out of curiosity, how much does Oliver listen to Dig on things?" I knew they were close but Oliver and I had clicked for a lot of reasons, one of them being sheer stubbornness.

"You remember how jacked up the group was back then?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, one of the times I was there Dig came home pissed as hell because Oliver was trying to pull another martyr act and he went into the whole backstory of their history from his view and how he'd gotten fed up with trying to get Oliver to understand things. Early on Oliver had paid a bit more attention to Dig's advice, then for some reason started ignoring him until things had gotten so out of hand the situation was almost beyond saving. I knew exactly how he felt and told him to just lay it all out. So he tried, from what Roy said he got in on a few of those talks as well, they didn't go easy on Oliver either. He explained to Oliver why he was splitting his time between Oliver and hunting with me, how the drama was driving wedges into the group and Oliver needed to make some serious choices. Roy was about two steps from just hunting full time with me, he honestly thought that was safer for him then working with Oliver."

"Really? Wow, it was that bad huh?"

"Guess so, Oliver kept being stubborn though, then Felicity piled on and said she'd leave Oliver high and dry if he kept being an idiot."

"Damn, that had to hurt." I knew how much Oliver loved her, even though it'd taken him a long time to admit it. I had no room to judge him on that, that's for sure.

"Yeah, well he almost made the wrong choice. I was there when Felicity showed up at Dig's in tears because Oliver still didn't get it. So I took steps."

"Uh oh," Sam had deeper ties with Oliver's group than I did and I knew he cared a lot for Felicity, he saw her as the reason he'd pulled out of the depression my going to Hell had left him in. "What'd you do?"

His jaw tightened, apparently it still bothered him that Oliver had hurt her. "I tracked his ass down and told him point blank that if he was too damn scared to love her how she should be loved I'd be more than happy to provide a comforting shoulder for her to cry on."

"You what?" That was pushing some serious boundaries. Even I'd never made moves on a girl that was already hooked up, at least as soon as I knew she was with someone. "That's a bit low don't you think?"

"Maybe, but it got his attention. After he took a few swings at me he settled down enough to finally think. I told him he was going to lose everything he'd worked for if he didn't drop the walls, drop the self-loathing and finally get off of that damn island and over the years of hell he'd been through. I told him he was better than this, everyone else saw it but him."

"Sounds familiar," I muttered.

"It should. After that he called all of them together and finally listened to what they had to say. So in a round about answer to your question, he actually listens to Dig a lot, now that he's actually paying attention again."

"Sam, would you have? The thing with Felicity?"

He sighed, "Another place, another time. If she wasn't in love with him, I'd sure as hell try."

"He knows doesn't he?"

"They both do, I didn't say anything, didn't have to, but it's not an issue. He knows I wouldn't ever try anything and I respect her too much to put her in that situation."

That explained a few things, "That's why you're still hunting?"

"One of the reasons, not the main one though. I'm still doing this because I want to and because all that knowledge in the Bunker, it needs to be used, saved, passed down. The things we could have prevented, the lives we could have saved if we'd known then what we knew now. Between what Felicity and I have come up with as far as toys and what we've learned from the books, less and less hunters are dying Dean. Less of us are ending up hurt or possessed. I've been tracking things like that. I made a list once, I asked around and found out how many hunters got killed the year before you retired and I started delving more into things. This last year? We've almost halved that. More hunters means more lives that are getting saved, less monsters." There was a sense of actual accomplishment behind his words, I remembered feeling that once, decades ago, "I can see that what I do is making a difference, finally. After all these years. It's not just about surviving a hunt and going to the next anymore. It's much more than that for me now."

When we first started hunting together as adults, I'd had a few years of hunting on my own under my belt, thought I knew it all. Looking back I started to wonder what our lives would have been like if I had listened to him more and less to the memory of Dad. There was a damn good reason he'd gotten into college and kicked ass on those tests to get into law school, I was just too full of myself to see it. "Proud of you, Sam. Really am, I think Dad would be too."

"Thanks Dean, but no offense, that's not what matters to me, what Dad would think. What I care about is if I can sleep at night because I'm not hurting people anymore. Doing things this way, I can."

"None taken." He'd never lived for anyone's approval, even mine. If he had, he wouldn't have gone to school. I used to think that was a bad thing, now, not so much. "I know one person who you have probably pissed off though with all this new and improved hunting. Crowley. Even though you and Roy have been avoiding demons and I sure as hell want nothing to do with them, hearing all this I can't imagine he's been taking it in stride. He's got to be pissed." That's when I knew Sam hadn't exactly been straight with me about demons.

"Yeah, about that. I did have one more run in with him, about a month after you moved out and I saw you were sticking with your decision to quit. There's a reason Roy and I haven't tangled with any demons and you haven't got a whiff of them either. He's scared shitless of me now."

"What?"

"I found a spell to summon hellhounds.."

"Well that would have come in handy about three or four years ago," I interrupted.

"I know, right? Anyway, as we know, Crowley's got eyes everywhere. I knew it'd get back to him eventually that you weren't hunting with me anymore and he'd try to get a fix on where you were."

"Sort of the reason I have Devil's traps under every rug in the house and two in the bedroom."

"That many? Damn."

"I put them down when all that open space confused me, I wanted to be thorough." Coyote had thought I was overdoing things a bit but she didn't stop me.

He nodded, "Well that's thorough all right. Back to the hellhounds and Crowley. I set up another Devil's trap surrounded by goofa dust in the dungeon and summoned one then Crowley right after, Cas was with me too. He misses you by the way."

"Crowley?" That was disturbing.

"No you idiot, Cas." There was speculative look his face as he maneuvered through some early morning traffic. "Since you're more sure of things now maybe you can give him a call."

After the whole ridding me of the Mark thing and my choice to take a break Cas and I had a long talk. Well I talked, he peered into my soul and told me what I was really thinking then made the choice to keep his distance for awhile. I hadn't wanted to come out and tell him that I needed a break from everything dealing with Heaven, Hell and alternate realities. He knew though and he didn't take it personally. His relationship with us had always broken every rule of human/angel interaction and try as he might, Cas was and will always be a soldier of Heaven, which meant that where he was, demons and angels were bound to show up at some point or other. I'd missed him too but I knew it was for the best that he wasn't around while I tried to recover from the Mark. I still wasn't too comfortable with the idea of having him back around. "We'll see. Maybe I'll drop by the Bunker and we can hang out there. Back to you and Crowley."

"Right. So he showed up, saw the hound, saw Cas and started speechifying like usual and that's when I shot him with a Devil's trap bullet to get his attention. Then I put Ruby's knife to his throat and told him how things were going to be. The new rules were hands off you, hands off me and Roy and I don't close the gates to Hell right then and there. I had two of the three trials right there and Cas could take me to grab a soul from Hell if need be. I pointed out that you weren't there to stop me and I'd see it as a parting gift to you if I wiped every demon off the face of the earth before I died."

It was probably a good thing I wasn't driving or there would be some screeching brakes right about now, "You said what? Sam! What the.." The sheer determination on his face stopped me.

"No one, not Crowley or anyone else was going to trash your retirement."

"And you dying would have made it any better?"

"If a demon caught you off guard and took you out when I could have prevented it I would have ended up dead anyway, because you can damn well bet I'd be doing the same thing. Closing the gates and finishing what I started. I wouldn't bring you back, you've suffered enough, but I'd take out who or whatever had killed you."

"And you've been bitching about me doing the martyr bit?"

"Stuff it, I knew Crowley would back down, he's too slimy not to. Although I was really hoping he wouldn't, I've been wanting to kill him for years, he knows it too. I also tossed into the threat that once I'd cured him and was dead Cas would kill him and take him to Purgatory since Hell would be closed. Cas, for some reason, chose that exact moment to go all angel and pull out the burning blue eyes bit while standing over Crowley with an angel blade. He took one look at me, the hound and Cas, nodded and signed a very one sided contract that I'd written. It basically stated that all current and future Winchesters, Roy, Thea and Oliver's people are off limits or we send him and his kind packing. Once he signed I pulled the bullet out of his leg, broke the traps and he and his dog left. Haven't seen or heard from him since."

Admittedly I was the one with with the reputation of being a badass, most of the monsters and demons would rather deal with Sam than me. They thought he was somehow a nicer guy, they were wrong. You don't survive what he had and not be able to dish it out when the chips were down. Even though I didn't really agree with the motive behind the threat I was bummed that I missed seeing him scare the King of Hell into making a deal like that. "I may not like the reason, but I have to admit I like your style." Once I got over the initial shock of what he'd said the rest of his words sunk in, "Current and future Winchesters?"

A wry grin sent all that seriousness packing, "Well, you never know."

"Huh, good point, I guess. Thanks, I was kind of wondering what was going on with that. It just seemed too weird that nothing had caught up to me. I mean, I've got hex bags in the house and I wear them when I go out but still."

"No problem, I've been wanting to threaten him with something like that for years. I'd do it too if something happened to you or Coyote and a demon was involved. Still would."

"I know." Sure, he'd put it out there that he wouldn't bring me back but in the end, family was still family. I was actually a bit relieved to know he'd let me go. I didn't want to go through all that again and I know Coyote wouldn't want me to come back from the dead either. It's not the natural order and every time we'd fucked with that things got worse.

Things got quiet after that for a few minutes, there was something on his mind. "What?" I asked.

"Dean, I want you to promise the same thing. I go, let me stay gone. Same for Coyote, something happens to her, you have to be willing to let her go too."

Fortunately, she'd already extracted that promise from me about six months in. She threw her beliefs at me, told me that if she died then woke up and I was standing over her she'd kill herself if she had to. She believed that once Shamans died their Spirits and knowledge added to this collective consciousness other Shamans could tap into, that to bring her back to life would deprive others of her gifts. Seeing her work I couldn't ignore the fact that something was there, helping her. So I agreed, as hard as it was, I knew if I'd said no we'd never work out. Agreeing to that one made this one a little easier, but not by much.

"Her and I dealt with this a few months back, I told her yes. It's part of her beliefs and I won't mess with those."

"And me?" He asked.

It hurt, God did it hurt but it was the right thing to do and very often right isn't easy. "Yes, you go, you stay gone. We've both been through enough. The thing that takes you out though, that gets to suffer."

He shook his head, "No, Roy handles that. Not you."

"Sam! Why?"

"Same reason you didn't want me to keep hunting after you went to Hell. Roy can handle it and not lose himself, you can't."

"You want me to sit back and let someone else take out the thing that kills you? No way."

He slowly turned his head to look at me and I got a taste of how he must of looked threatening Crowley, "I want you mourn then move on, like normal people do. Our family's lost enough looking for revenge. Understand?"

"I..." For some reason, for all I know my Warrior Spirit was making itself known, memories of Coyote started crowding out my thoughts. Not just recent ones either, older ones, all the times it'd hurt to leave and choose the life over her, the night I walked out and headed off with Sam to do the Trials and thought it was the last time I'd ever see her. All the times I'd had a chance to let him go and be with her. Then, and I hesitate to call it a vision since I'm not Shaman, we'll go with a rough imagining of the future started playing out in my mind. Sam was dead, her and I were arguing and I was walking out, leaving her in tears, again. The last thing I heard from her was, "You can't come back this time. I won't do this again." I stood there, looking at Baby's door. Then it faded. Was it worth it? Was killing some monster that someone else could take out worth losing her for. Time seemed to stop for a second, not just outside of me but inside, my brain was quiet, even my emotions had somehow faded. I saw everything so clearly, "Understood. Roy or whoever takes care of it." It wasn't worth it. Living like that, the darkness, the emptiness, I never wanted to be that person again, ever. I'd been like that for too long already.


	23. Awkward

Once we established the new rules we spent most of the rest of the trip having a rambling conversation that jumped around a lot. Some of it was reliving old memories, some was new stuff and some of it was just random crap to pass the time. We stopped for lunch, I grabbed my usual just for old time's sake and had a rather rude awakening when I took a bite of the burger.

"Damn, this is greasy as hell." Coyote and I used lean meat or game meat like bison when we cooked, and we'd come up with some pretty tasty spice combinations for it too. This burger was bland, greasy and nasty.

Sam stared at me in shock, "Holy crap, you actually have taste buds now? I didn't know they could grow this late in life."

"Shut up," I debated sending it back and ordering something else but I didn't want to be one of those people so I just choked it down. It hit my stomach like a load of bricks. "Uggh, this sucks."

He didn't seem all that enthusiastic about the chicken thing he'd ordered either, "This is pretty much the only part I hate about the life now. I've gotten used to home cooked meals between you guys, Lyla and what I put together at home. It's hard to find decent food now."

"Yeah, seriously."

We chose not to linger over lunch, paid and left. He's been getting texts from the other hunters that were joining us on their eta to the nest. It seemed like all of us would be getting there within an hour or two of each other, I'd never really run a hunt with this many people so the whole concept was odd to me. "So, how are we doing this anyway?"

"Since we're all getting there midday and the houses are all conveniently located in shady areas we're going to try to hit them all at the same time. Felicity's hooked me up with some of those earpiece things she uses so we can all stay in touch and make sure everyone makes it out okay. It seems your return has generated some interest and we've got a few more hunters than we need, probably have them on stand by just in case."

That surprised me, "What the hell? It's not like I'm some prizefighter or something. I don't need a crowd watching me hunt, that'll just be awkward."

"Uh yeah, not so much guys watching you hunt. It's more along the lines of the hunters you hooked up with for your extracurricular activities."

"What...oh. This is going to suck."

He managed to keep a straight face, barely, "Seems some of them aren't quite willing to believe you're off the market. At least, that's what I'm assuming, since the ones that are replying that they are joining are all ones you've slept with."

"Is this how this works now? Tons of hunters just randomly showing up places?" I was starting to think killing the vampires would be the easiest part of this hunt.

"Nope, first time I've ever seen this happen. Usually a hunter requesting help gets two or three people joining up, we're up to seven, half of them are women you know."

"Any chance we can just go hunt elsewhere? There's got to be other nests nearby."

And that's when the faked sympathy took over, "Aww, you want to disappoint your adoring fans?"

"I hate you, really, really hate you."

He laughed, "Can you imagine if Coyote had come with us?"

Visions of hunter on hunter violence filled my head, "We never, ever, mention this to her. Ever."

"She wouldn't hurt you, you'll behave."

"It's not me I'm worried about."

"Good point."

I may as well get prepared for this, "Which ones do I need to worry about."

"Shayna, Irish Shayna."

"Shit." It wasn't so much that Shayna and I had ever had anything all that special, it was just that she barely tops five feet tall, is Irish, a redhead and fully embodies all the stereotypes associated with those three things. She used to do amateur MMA matches until she got pregnant. She'd been undefeated before she quit. There was never, ever a safe conversation with her, she'd turn anything into a reason to fight. Sure, that'd made sex with her exciting, especially when I was all about living on the edge, but it didn't bode well if she tried to hit on me and I turned her down. Which I would. Well there was no turning back now. "Thanks for the heads up."

"No problem. Anyway, back to hunting. Gerald's scoping out the houses to see which house has the most vamps. Do you want to go with the main group to that one or hit one of the smaller ones that you and I can probably take out ourselves?"

"Smaller one," I'd never been all that comfortable hunting with people I didn't know. It's not that I didn't trust other hunters but I didn't know how they acted or moved. Too many things can go wrong when you hunt with strangers.

"Got it. Basically that's it. Gerald will probably run the hunt at the house with the larger number, you and I will hit one and then whoever else wants it can have the third. We'll get the blood in them, take two, kill the rest, head back."

"Better hope there are some smaller sized vamps, your trunk isn't as large as Baby's." I pointed out.

"I grabbed some blankets to cover whoever we lay across the back seat. Oh and I've got body armor now too."

"What?"

"Christmas gift from Lyla. Keeps claws, blades and bullets from getting to you. Fortunately she gave me two sets so I have one that will fit you."

"Wow, nice gift."

He smiled, "Yeah, after that I started calling her my hunter mom. She insists I text her after every hunt and let her know I'm okay."

That kind of bothered me, it shouldn't have, but it did. Not that I had anything against Lyla taking care of him, it was the thought of him calling someone else mom. Course he hadn't really known our Mom, but still. I hid it though, "I'll have to tell her thanks for watching out for you."

"She's good people."

"I've always thought so."

About an hour later we pulled off the freeway and pulled up to a motel. I recognized a few of the cars, they were ones I'd built. "Huh, Joey, Rich and Sherm. Nice. They're solid guys."

"Yup, along with Gerard, Shayna, Teresa and Susan."

"Damn, how many vamps does he think are here?"

"Fifteen."

"Almost one hunter per vamp, this should be cake then."

"Should be." He didn't sound all that convinced.

"Not exactly the confident agreement I was going for."

"I don't know, vamps splitting up between houses like this. It's not normal."

"Yeah, guess we'll just have to wait and see. When's Shayna supposed to get here?"

He parked next to Sherm's old black Nova I'd rebuilt and turned off the car, "An hour. Want the keys so you can bolt and hide?"

"In front of all these people? You're kidding right?"

He put his hand on my leg and gave me a somber look, "We'll give you a good funeral, your headstone will stay "It wasn't the demons, it was the redhead. Learn from my mistake and run."

"You were a lot more fun when you didn't have this sarcastic side," I shoved his hand off me, got out and grabbed my bag from the back.

He got out and unloaded his stuff, "Sorry, I think it comes from being the oldest on the team now. I can get away with a lot more crap."

"I may have to start riding with you again just to remind you to riespect your elders."

We started up the stairs, Gerald had texted us the room he was in, "Yeah, that horse left the barn months ago. Once you start being a smart ass you can't stop, you should know that."

I knocked on Gerald's door, he opened it and there was a huge smile on his face, "Dean Winchester rides again, or should we call this the Winchester reunion tour?" Gerald stands about 5'6, he's all muscle, half Italian, half Irish and all attitude. He's mostly bald, wears glasses, looks like a linebacker and I'm pretty sure has mafia connections with the amount of things he's "acquired" for the truck stop. I keep expecting to get visited by a bunch of guys in Armani suits telling Coyote and I that we owe them favors. He is, however, one of the few guys other than Sam I'd go hunting with in a heartbeat. He's solid, knows his stuff and deadly.

I shook his hand, "No tour, one and done Gerald, just doing this for a friend and a kid."

"Uh-huh, huntin' dogs are always huntin' dogs Dean. Where's Coyote?"

"Holed up with the friend and kid at Sam's place."

"All right. Sam, good to see ya."

Sam shook his hand and we walked in, "Yeah, you too Gerald. Anything new?"

Joey, Rich and Sherm were sprawled out in chairs and the beds, Rich and Sherm had beers Joey had a bottle of water, he's a bit of a health nut and a recovering alcoholic. When I'd found that out I asked him how he managed to stay sober around hunters. Beer's pretty much a requirement for us, he'd said he saw being around it all the time as a sort of an immunization thing. If he kept exposing himself to being around people who were half drunk most of the time it'd be a constant reminder why he quit. I had major respect for someone with that much willpower. Joey was Brazilian, his name was Juan but he'd gotten tired of lame hunter jokes so went by Joe, he was one of those wiry guys that you think is weak until he hits you. Rich was a Southern boy, born and bred on a farm on Georgia and Sherm was a former beach bum from California, all blonde and tan. He'd been on some sort of drug induced trip when a Djinn decided to feed on he and his friends. Rich saved their asses and he's hunted ever since.

"So Dean," Rich drawled, "Back in the saddle? Didn't think anything'd pry you out of that garage."

"Like I just said, helping a friend. This is Sam and Gerald's hunt, I'm just riding shotgun."

None of them seemed al that convinced. Great. "When's everyone else gettin' here?"

Sherm smirked, "You mean the Dean's Ex-lovers Club?

This was going to be a long hunt. "Is who I've slept with public record now?"

"Well," he continued, "Since you've been off the market things have definitely picked up for the rest of us in that area. We drew certain conclusions. Plus, the speed of their replies was rather unusual."

"This must be what a high school reunion feels like," I said, "Now I get why people hate them so much."

Joey decided to join in on the fun, "Now if we can just get Sam hitched..."

"Yup," Rich said, "both the pretty boy Winchesters off the field means a whole lot less competition."

"Sam? You're competiton now?" I asked, he's never been a play the field kind of guy.

He cleared his throat, looked away and shrugged, "First I've heard of it. So. Vampires."

I should have just stayed home.


	24. Colliding Pasts

I let it drop, it wasn't any of my business anyway. Sam had a lot more downtime now and I wasn't hovering over him so if he was out exploring possibilities and living a little I wasn't going to give him shit about it. I'd always told him to lighten up, maybe he was. Hell, with the Mustang he'd probably have even more chicks falling all over him. I kind of hoped he'd use it to it's fullest extent, he basically had his own place and his own wheels now. Not that I'd expected him to take chicks to the Bunker, he knew better, but it changed how you looked at the world when you had a home and your own things. I'd found that out over the last year.

"Got the vids of the houses?" He asked Gerald.

"Yup, right here." Gerald opened his laptop up and pulled up a vid and hit play. They were all outside shots of the houses, one looked to be in an abandoned housing complex that someone had probably started on and lost funding for. The other two were the usual ramshackle houses out in the middle of nowhere. Oklahoma was full of those.

"The one in the housing complex," I said, "How many vamps hanging out there?"

"The majority of them, which is weird. It's not exactly out of the way. It's hard to get a good count, they're in and out of there a lot. I hiked up there and hung out in a house across the street one day. It's a weird set up Dean, if I didn't know better I'd say they're organizing more than being a nest. Lots of them walking out, looking all serious and on their phones. There's a couple that seem to be in charge that hang out there most of the time. And the kills I found, not enough to support that many vamps. Maybe they're doing bagged blood to try to keep a low profile, or hiding bodies a lot better than they usually do."

He had caught a few of them walking in and out on the vid and I saw what he meant. They weren't casually moving around, they had a purpose and some of them didn't seem to stay all that long. "What about the other two houses? Less in and out going on there?"

"Yeah, those seem to be more their sleeping quarters."

This wasn't going to be a quick job. I was hoping to get back to the Bunker that night but I didn't like what I saw and Sam didn't either. "The headquarters first," I told him.

"Yeah. Well at least none of them will recognize the car."

"True. Park a few streets over, we'll hang out in one of the other houses for an hour or two like Gerald did. Leave a window open see what we can hear."

"Sounds good."

The rest of them nodded. "We'll get you guys a room," Sherm offered.

"Thanks. Sorry, was hoping this would be a quick thing with this many hunters."

"No worries Dean," Joey said. "Didn't really want to hit the road again today anyway, better safe than vampire chow."

"Got a point there. Back in a bit." Sam and I walked out. "Could just be a nest," I said. "A nest that seems to like sending it's members out on errands a lot."

"During the day? Sure, the sun doesn't kill them but they still avoid it at all costs. Something's up."

"Of course it is, I only get the completely screwed up hunts. I'm seriously starting to think it's me. You've been on your own for a year and it seems like nothing really strange has happened to you. I'm back less than a day and we have some sort of vampire mob going on. You did notice they seemed a bit more professionally dressed than most vamps usually are." The ones Gerald had got shots of all looked like yuppies, no bikers types or lost souls. If you didn't know they were vamps you'd think they were on their way to work.

"I did."

He was mulling something over and I had a feeling it was the same thing I was, "You said earlier that you guys have been taking out more monsters, more efficiently with fewer casualties. Think the monsters are taking notice of that?"

"God I hope not."

"Yeah, me too." Our advantage had always been that monsters usually don't like other monsters, they didn't work together or think past their own needs. Even when dealing with a vampire nest or a wolf pack they'd always focused more on surviving and getting the hell away from hunters than actually doing anything to stop us. If that ever changed things would get a lot bloodier for everyone involved.

We got to the old development, there were about fifty houses in it. We broke into a garage two streets over from where the vamps were, parked the car, grabbed machetes and a few other goodies, shut the door and walked between the houses so we wouldn't be seen from the street. Once we got to the house Gerald had used for his stake out we popped open the sliding glass door, walked in, found the upstairs bedroom that faced the vampire house, pulled open the window, opened the blinds just enough so we could see out and settled in. Sam handed me a set of binoculars, put his set up to his eyes and we scoped out Vamp HQ.

"Blinds all closed up tight," he said. "No surprise there."

"Someone's coming out," I told him. Two, what I assumed were vamps, one in white, one in gray business suits came out. They were both woman, a blonde and a brunette and they weren't all that bad looking either. They had on heavy sunglasses and hats on to keep the sun off them. They headed to the Toyota Camry in the driveway, the brunette in gray opened the door for the blonde in white who got in the passenger seat. Then one in gray then went to the driver's side and pulled out. "Top dog there I'm guessing."

He nodded and we kept watching. A few more showed up, stayed fifteen or so minutes then left but we couldn't really hear any of the conversations. "We need to trail these guys, see where they're going."

"Well, there'll be enough of us to to do a pretty thorough job of that. Check out the other two places?"

"Yeah. My guess, this place is where the head of the nest is hanging, the other two houses are the bottom feeders. We could probably wipe those two out and not miss much, this one on the other hand. This one we need intel from."

He leaned against the wall and put his set of binoculars back in his jacket, "We are taking two back to the Bunker. plenty of time to pump whichever one survives for info."

My phone buzzed, "Oh crap, forget to tell her we made it." I pulled it out of my pocket, sure enough it was a text from Coyote. Jacob had had a few more panic attacks and she was getting worried. I sent back that we'd made it and things had gotten complicated but I'd call her later and tell her more. Jacob, shit. "Sam, we need to prioritize here. Coyote says Jacob has had a few more freak outs. I don't want to spend a week here trailing vamps and sorting all this out."

He looked out the window and stared off into space. I knew he felt like he was somehow overseeing hunters as a group now but I didn't want to get pulled farther in than I had to. I came for two vamps to help a kid, that was it. After a minute or two he focused his gaze back on me, "You're right. Jacob's the job, not this. Not for you. Let's check out the other two houses first. Whichever one we pick we'll go in solo, Gerald and the rest can watch this place and see what happens after we bail. We'll tell Gerald and the rest to trail these guys and see if they can get some intel. Then I can come back after we deal with Jacob and help coordinate things."

Even though that had been the answer I wanted, once he'd said it, it felt wrong. I was out. Coyote was back at the Bunker with a screwed up kid. That was what mattered, not monsters organizing into something more, if they even were. "Sounds good."

We made it back to his car and hit the other two houses in pretty quick succession. There weren't any cars at one, we peeked in the windows and saw a few lumps of what we hoped were sleeping vamps not bodies but we chose to check the other one out just to be safe. That one had two cars in front, a red Camry and a white Civic and a lot more tire tracks in the dirt around the place. We pulled off the road a way up from the driveway and worked our way back. Fortunately the back had a crap ton of shrubs that made it easy to get close to a window without being out in the open that much, there were about five people in that one, stretched out and sleeping on beaten up furniture. They had more of the usual down at the heels, biker, lost soul vampire look about them.

I jerked my head back towards the woods to let Sam know we needed to talk, he nodded and followed me away from the house. "We need to clear that other house, see if it's vamps or corpses."

"Agreed," he said. "I know a way to do it that won't put us in too much danger."

"Really? Not busting into houses anymore?"

He smiled, "Not trying to do that right off, broadening my approach to things."

"Cool." I was more than up for not fending off fangs if I didn't have to.

We got back to the other house, Sam idled in front of it, got out, popped the trunk and pulled out a flare gun. He aimed it at the window, fired, got back in the car, drove about two hundred feet down, flipped a u-turn and pulled off the road. We both looked back at the house through the binoculars and waited. A few seconds later three people came running out, they didn't use the door, they just busted through a wall. Definitely not human or corpses. Hunters don't tend to use flare guns so more than likely they'd think it was some punk kids. "Nice," I said.

"Yeah. Funny how vamps still freak when they see fire. It won't kill them."

"Guess some things are just ingrained." The three vamps hadn't bolted too far, it was two girls and a guy, all young looking and their backs were to us. "Let's do this now. We'll kill one, put the other two on ice, stick them in the car, call Gerald on the way out of town and tell him what's up with the other two houses." I just wanted to get this done and over with.

Sam shook his head, "I want them on those other two houses. They're not that far away and if these guys call for backup we could be screwed trying to get out of here if the fight gets dicey. They can block the other houses while we take out these ones. Maybe even knock out the other crappy house and then watch the HQ one and see what they do."

"These guys might call someone now since we spooked them, we're missing an opportunity here."

His face got that look, he wasn't going to budge on this. "I told them we'd help with the hunt, not grab two vamps and bail."

I took a second to look at things from his side, he works with these guys, I don't. "So what? We sit here and wait for them to get in place and then go in?" Before he got a chance to reply a car came towards us then turned into the dirt in front of the house and four vamps got out. "Well there went that easy kill."

"Something's way off here Dean, way off. None of this makes sense. Three houses? Vamps moving around this much during the day? Either these aren't vamps or someone's changed the rules. We can't rush this. I at least want to watch these places for a day before we make a move."

I had to agree, even though I really didn't want to, "Yeah, you're right. So, stake out time I guess."

He got that sneaky smile again, "Not really." He reached into the back seat and pulled out a small, hard, black case. "Felicity tech."

"Oooh, really?"

"Yup, tiny cameras." He popped open the case and there was four small camera nestled in a bunch of foam. "They upload to her server, will run for hours too. All I have to do is log into the site from my phone or laptop. We'll have to stake out tonight, cameras won't see shit in the dark, but as long as there's some sunlight we're good."

"You've become such a lazy hunter, I approve."

He laughed. "I prefer efficient, thank you very much."

"Let's do this then, Mr. Efficient. If I had all this crap years ago the amount of, as you called it, extra curricular activites I could have done would have skyrocketed."

"You'd probably forget to actually hunt."

I thought about it for a second, "It's possible."

Once all the vamps went back inside we pulled up behind some trees, Sam got out and secured a camera to a tree somehow while I watched the house. He got back in the car, pulled up the site on his phone, checked that the camera was working and we left. We dropped back by the other two houses, did the same thing and went back to the hotel. I was liking the blend of old school hunting with high tech tools, it definitely took a lot of the tedium out of things.

I saw one more car that I recognized when we got back to the hotel, Susan was here, which probably meant the other girls were here too. I really wanted to avoid them as much as possible. I hadn't slept all that well the night before, we'd left around three in the morning and it was pushing one in the afternoon. I was getting tired, further proof that I was out of practice hunting. I'd gotten used to real sleep and no long drives over the last year. I needed coffee or a nap. I must be getting old. "Hold up," I told him, "Let me try to avoid more awkardness." I called Gerald.

"Hey, you boys take the long way home?"

"Kind of. Do you have our room key or is it at the desk?"

"I got it, why?" He was playing dumb but I could tell he knew why I'd asked. I heard the laugh he was pushing back.

"Meet us at the room, if any of my fan club is there with you, kindly keep it to yourself where your going."

"They're not but message received. You're in 150. See you there."

I could have hugged him right then. "We're in room 150, Gerald's bringing the key."

"Uh Dean?" Sam said and pointed out the windshield.

I panicked for a moment when I saw Teresa walking out from a room but then remembered we weren't in Baby. "She doesn't know this car." Sure enough she didn't seem to notice us. "Never been so happy to not be in Baby. Whew."

She got into a newer Ford and pulled out, I almost ducked, then realized how lame that would be. "Okay let's go."

We grabbed our stuff and found the room, Gerald was standing in front of the door. As soon as he saw us he started acting all shifty, like in a bad cop comedy. He kept looking down the halls and waved at us to move faster towards the door, "Coast is clear, run Dean! Get in before they see you!"

"Really? Not helping Gerald, seriously."

Talk about sarcastic grins, at least he didn't laugh at me. "Here you go." He tossed me the keys then got serious. "So, things not as cut and dried as you were hoping?"

"No, and thank you so much for finding a jacked up hunt for me to be on." I opened the door.

He looked kind of hurt, "Hey, you said vamps, you didn't say easy."

"Next time I'll clarify," I grumbled as I tossed my bag on a bed. I hate hotel rooms, now more than ever.

Sam took one look at me, nodded, set his bags down and grabbed his laptop. "Gerald, I could use some food, Dean needs to call Coyote and see what's going on. How about you and I go fill everyone in? I got cameras on the houses. Dean can catch up later."

And that's why I love my brother, he was trying his damnedest to keep me as far away from hunting as he could even though we were on a job. He knew how much this was sucking for me, and unlike me, he wasn't being an ass about it. I remembered all my stupid speeches to him when I'd pulled him back in, how he had to suck it up and deal. Sam, on the other hand, was trying to let me have that space I needed.

Gerald didn't say anything, he seemed to understand too, "Sure Sam, makes sense."

"Thanks guys." They knew what I was really thanking them for.

"Sure," Sam replied. He took one of they keys and left with Gerald.

I sat on one of the beds and it hit me, I missed home, missed her. I'd never really been homesick before, now I knew why Sam had been so down for so long after Jess and Amelia. I dug my phone out of my pocket and called her.

"Hey Babe," she said.

"Miss you," I didn't even bother saying hi.

"Miss you too."


	25. Twists and Turns

"What's going on?" She asked.

I laid back and closed my eyes, "Vamps not acting like vamps, tell me what you think." I gave her the rundown on what was going on.

"Hmm, I agree, something's way off. What's the plan?"

"Sam's talking to Gerald and the rest. I'm just sitting in our room, trying not to get too involved. Sam gets it."

"I thought you didn't like going into things blind," she countered.

"I know enough; like I said, Jacob's the priority here. I don't want to waste a week or two playing detective. They can figure all that out later."

"Dean," she didn't like that answer. "Not saying you don't have a point, because Jacob is what got you back on the road but.."

"Not trying to be a jerk," I interrupted, "But there's seven other hunters here besides Sam and I. If they can't figure out what the hell is going on there's not much hope for hunters in general is there. Sam can come back if he wants. I'm staying out of it."

"I understand, just don't get killed because you're not paying attention."

"I won't. Sam will fill me in later. Just, you know me. The more I know, the more I'll want to figure it out and then I'll be back to actually hunting, not moonlighting," I sighed, "Sam's gotten a smart ass side too. Keeps it up, I'll take the car back."

She laughed and for a minute there things didn't suck so bad, "Where do you think he got it from?"

"Yeah, but he wasn't so fast on the uptake before."

"That was when he deferred to you out of habit. He doesn't have to do that anymore you know."

"I know, it's kind of depressing."

"Everyone grows up eventually," she pointed out. "Just hits you harder because of your guys' past and how you grew up."

"I guess." I was suddenly tired, just worn out. I shouldn't be, but I was. "Hey, I'm going to go. Wiped out I guess, we should plan our emotionally intense sessions a bit better. I didn't get much sleep last night." I could picture the smile on her face.

"All right," her voice was soft and made me miss her that much more, "What you said last night and Sam did this morning, you really ready for that? Not asking for anything with diamonds or all that but, sister-in-law? He's never used those terms before and you were a lot more serious."

"You were too, I saw it in your face even if you didn't actually say anything. Sam's always known what I'm thinking before I do so I'm not surprised he sees you as family. We've been together a year now, for me that's pretty much a lifetime. So yes, I'm not going anywhere, your place is home for me. It's our place. I miss it, miss the porch, miss the weirdness of a round house, miss that damn yard and miss my garage. All of it. I miss how I feel when I'm in it. You probably won't ever get a ceremony because, well, my family history with those isn't all that great, but you have what counts. That's if you want it."

There was a long pause and I think my heart skipped a beat or two. Then I heard her sniff.

"Trying to find a way to say yes without being cliche." She sounded pretty choked up and happy at the same time. My heart started beating again and all that homesickness faded away.

"Um, think you said it and managed to be cliche but I'll let it slide this time. I love you."

"I love you too Dean."

We let it hang there for a second or two, "Get some sleep," she said, "I'll call you later with a rundown on Jacob and Krissy."

"They hanging in there?"

"Yeah, for the most part. He's sleeping a lot which is making things easier. Krissy's been taking it easy but when he does wake up he goes straight into a panic. I've been watching his energy, it's cycling for some reason. I've figured out the pattern but I can't seem to stop the build up that happens before he wakes up and I'm running out of ideas."

"Don't push yourself. Speaking from experience the only way to stop any of the side effects is to just break the connection. If he's sleeping take that as a win and just keep on doing whatever it is you're doing that is causing that. Probably the best thing for him right now. Trust me." I remembered how many nights I hadn't slept a wink once the Mark started taking me over more. If he could still sleep, he wasn't that far gone.

"You would be the expert, I'll pull back and just wait for my gift wrapped vampires."

"Good. Hopefully we'll be back in a day or two tops. I'll let you know the plan when we have one."

"Sounds good. Sleep well Babe."

"Thanks."

We hung up. I set the phone down, kicked my shoes off and got comfortable. Sam was in charge, he could worry about all the details. I needed sleep, screw it. Somewhere in the midst of thinking I'd paid my dues I drifted off.

A soft voice woke me up, "Hey lover," I felt a hand on my leg and my back. Something wasn't right. I opened my eyes and saw the hand was pale skinned, not that deep brown color that it should have been.

I rolled over, saw red hair and moved so fast off the bed that I almost knocked the lamp over. "Shayna! What the fuck? How the hell did you get in here?"

She'd already taken her shirt off, so all she was in was her bra and a short ass skirt. She was laying on her side, her hair all strewn across her chest and a pouty look on her face. "Lockpicks, duh." Her left arm propped her head up as she shifted to show even more leg. "That's not how you usually react when I pop in for a visit."

"That's because you popping in tended to take place after I called you. Haven't done that in about five years."

The pout turned angry, "Four and a half, Dean. Get it right."

Now that I was about ten feet away and wide awake I started actually processing things, she'd lost some muscle, her hair was longer and she was wearing way too much makeup, like five pounds worth. I guess I used to think that was hot, kind of disturbing actually. Coyote barely wore lipstick. I guess Shayna would still be attractive to most guys, but right now I just wanted her the hell away from me.

"Whatever. Not interested. Glad to have had this chat." I couldn't entirely blame her, we used to make a habit of breaking into each others' rooms back in the day, but we'd still given one another a heads up we were in town. She probably figured that since I was coming, Sam would have mentioned she was joining our little hunt and thought that gave her the right to break in. I really didn't know exactly how much everyone knew about what I'd been up to the last year other than not hunting. She didn't look all that confused but I figured I should clarify, "I'm with someone, have been for a year or so."

I liked it better when she was lying on the bed then when she crawled across it, making sure I got a clear view of her assets, stood up and slinked across the room towards me. She was still pretty damn good at slinking. "I heard the rumors. A year huh? You must be pretty bored then."

"Not in the least," I shoved my hands behind me and backed up a few more feet. "Seriously Shayna, back off." She may have lost muscle but she knew how to break arms in multiple places and choke a guy out, even one who's a foot taller than her. I'd seen her do it on more than one occassion. I just kept backing up hoping to shove her out the door with minimal yelling involved. Then she got her hands on my chest and my pants, I just reacted. She must not have been expecting it because she was picking herself up off the floor a few feet away before it even dawned on me that I had shoved her. The only women I'd ever shoved before were female monsters. "Sorry, but get out. I mean it."

Her temper flared, she rolled up off the ground and rose up on the balls of her feet. Shit. "Shayna, let's not go here. You took your shot, I'm done with playing the field. Move on."

"So what? I'm not good enough now bastard?"

"Now? What are you talking about? We haven't talked in years. This shouldn't come as a shock." I was getting the feeling that I was about to pay for someone else screwing her over. She was way too pissed off and out of control for it to be about me, or at least I hope so. I didn't need stalkers.

"Now you have morals? Now, all of a sudden, hook ups aren't your thing?" She came at me, I barely avoided the kick to the chest she threw. How she pulled that off in that skirt I had no idea.

"Pretty much, yeah, but feel free to hook up with someone else." I had no damn clue how to handle this.

"Who? Huh Dean? Who? You see what's out there? Other than Sam and maybe one or two others they all suck." Her fist flew at me, I thought I was out of range but she got a decent hit to my gut.

"Uh, not sure how that's my fault?" I knew better than to get close enough to grapple with her but I was about ready to try to chuck her over my shoulder and throw her out.

"Who's this bitch?" She snarled, "I hear you live out on some Indian land now. She must be pretty pathetic to live out there, or did you just want something dark and nasty."

That did it, the next hit she threw at me I stopped cold. My hand pretty much engulfed hers and my foot ripped her legs out from under her. She dropped to the floor. I let her fall but I kept hold of her arm then shoved my foot into her chest. "Shut your fucking mouth. Insult me all you want, start in on her and you'll go out the door the hard way."

She laughed of all things, "So sad, it doesn't matter if you put out or not jackass. I'll just tell everyone you did, it'll get back to her one way or other. No woman who knows your history would doubt that you couldn't keep it in your pants."

I put some extra weight on the foot that was pinning her to the ground, she tried to struggle. That's when I twisted her wrist. She's tough but she had no leverage, I outweigh her by a lot. She stopped moving. "Look, I don't know what the hell happened to you to make you this pissed but I'm stopping this before it starts." Fortunately we'd circled back around the room so my phone was within reach and I hit the Facetime app. I wanted Coyote to see every damn thing that happened. I angled the phone so she'd be able to see both Shayna and I.

She picked up, "Babe? What the..?" She stopped talking and I saw her run through all the possible scenarios this could remotely make sense in. There weren't that many actually.

"Coyote, love of my life, meet Shayna. former hook up partner. Shayna broke in and thought she'd try to re-live old times. I haven't talked to her in years. Four and a half by her count. I told her to get the fuck out, she started throwing punches. She hinted she'd spread shit about me, so figured I'd introduce you two."

"She seems to be missing a shirt," Coyote said, in an even tone.

"He..."

"Shut up bitch. I woke up to her like that. My word."

"Like that's worth all that much," Shayna spat out.

I saw it happen, Coyote's whole attitude shifted, she shot past Shaman and went back to hunter. "Listen up you disgusting, sad, insecure excuse for a woman, much less a hunter. I'm quite sure Dean informed you he was involved before you started throwing punches, I'm even willing to hazard a guess that you knew before hand, seeing as how you picked out that bargain basement hooker skirt and the push up bra from hell to make yourself look better. So of the two of you, you're the one that looks bad here, not him. He could have hopped on top of you in a hot minute seeing as you were so willing, but he didn't, he called me. I was a hookup of his too back in the day but even then he didn't go four years without calling me. Take that as a hint. He played the field, he took his pick, it's not you or any other woman out there, it's me. Deal with it."

Shayna still didn't quite get it or she was just too jacked up to care, "Listen to you all high and mighty. You really think a slut like him will stay loyal. Maybe not be today but he'll fuck you over, they all do."

"Normally Shayna, I'd be sympathetic," Coyote replied, "You're hurting , I get it, but you're talking about the man I've given more to than you can possibly understand so you've got thirty seconds to get the hell out of the city he's in."

"Or what bitch?"

"Or Dean will kick your ass, so will Sam and so will any other hunter that Dean knows. You think your life sucks now? Wait till I turn hunters loose on you for lying about Dean Winchester. Sam's there, he can send out an email to everyone in five seconds that will blacklist your whiny ass. Think about it."

That got her attention, "You wouldn't."

"Try me," Coyote threatened, there was no mistaking her tone or her face. I'd seen her hunt monsters and fight for her life, I knew she was dead serious and so did Shayna. "You becoming a hunter pariah is only a text away. Choose."

"Fine," she ground out, "He's not all that great anyway, you can have him."

How quick things change. I let her hand drop and moved my foot. "Get your shit and leave." I said, "As in leave town. I don't want you on this hunt and you'd better make damn sure I don't see your face again or hear anything about this from anyone. Got it?"

"Whatever bastard." She grabbed her shirt and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

I really wanted to punch the wall but I was holding the phone, "Holy fuck!"

"Dean? Did you know she was coming?" She may have backed me but she was pretty pissed she'd had no warning.

"Yes, her and Teresa and Susan are here. Haven't seen the other two, avoiding them for as long as possible. I didn't think Shayna would come on that strong and I had other things on my mind when I called you earlier. Sam told me on the way here. I figured they'd hit on me, I'd say no and that would be it. Not shit like this."

"Sometimes your lack of knowledge on how women think astonishes me, especially with as many as you've been with," she said with an amused grin pulling the seriousness off her face.

"I know how to get them in bed, the rest isn't my area of expertise."

"Obviously," she sighed. "I should have known. The irresistible Dean Winchester back out among the masses would have attracted attention. Clear the air with the other two soon, just in case and make sure Sam's with you. If they're thinking you can backslide having your brother right there telling them you're off the market will make it sink in farther, faster."

"I won't you know."

"Won't what?"

"Backslide." I hadn't even thought about anyone else after moving in with her.

She ran her finger along the screen of her phone, I'd guess she was tracing the image of my face on her screen. "Of all the things I worry about with you being on the road, that's not even on the list. Promise."

"Good. Well I'm up now." I looked at the clock, I'd gotten about two hours of sleep. Which was weird, they couldn't have needed to talk for that long. "Guess I'll see what everyone's up to. Talk to you later sweetheart."

"Sure, next time have a hot half naked guy in the room with you, more fun for me," she said as she leered at me and clicked her tongue twice.

"I..uh...no. Not happening."

"No fun, I swear."

"Yeah, bye."

She laughed and hung up. What the hell else could go wrong on this hunt?


	26. Old Habits Die Hard

I called Sam since I wasn't sure if they'd gone out for food or what.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey, where are you guys?"

"Gerald's room, sleep well?"

"Yeah, kind of. Susan and Teresa there?"

"Yes, not sure where Shayna is though."

"Yeah, about that. She's off this hunt."

There was a beat or two before he said anything, "What happened?"

"I'm on my way down, I'll explain then."

"Okay."

I was halfway to the room when we hung up. Coyote had a point, before we went out and started hacking at things everyone had better be on the same page with why they were here. If the other two were here only to try to take a shot with me I wanted them gone too. Enough shit can go wrong with a hunt without bringing stupid drama into it.

I knocked before I opened the door, never a good idea to just bust into a room full of hunters. Susan and Teresa were sitting on one of the beds, Sam was at the table on his laptop, Joey, Sherm and Gerald were split between the chairs and the other bed. Both the girls were fully dressed in hunting attire, I took that as a good sign. Maybe they'd just come for the job. Susan stands about three inches shorter than me and looks a Viking, blonde braids, buff and no nonsense. Teresa looked like a pixie next to her, I'd never figured out how she hadn't been ripped to shreds on a hunt. She's small boned, short cropped hair that's always dyed weird colors and the same height as Shayna. Never let her draw a blade on you though, you'll be in ribbons in seconds. Her hair looked like a rainbow this time. Both of them were short hookups from way back but we'd stayed in touch, mostly just short texts and some random meet ups for drinks every now and again. I'd never got the vibe from them the last few times we ran into each other than they wanted to hop into bed but then I hadn't expected Shayna to go all stalker bitch on me either.

Neither of them gave me any sex you up looks when I walked in, "All right, let me just clear the air here," I started out. "Shayna's off the hunt. She broke into my room and went full psycho bitch. She apparently thought it'd be fun to test the theory that I'm off the market as far as hookups go. So to put any and all doubts to rest, I'm with someone, have been for the last year. Not interested in anyone else." I pointed at Susan and Teresa, "If either of you showed up just to make some kind of play and aren't here to actually take care of business, just bail. I don't need this hunt to go more sideways than it already has. Clear?"

The guys, with the exception of Sam, cycled through varying degrees of jealous, impressed, then a little uncomfortable when it dawned on them how far Shayna had probably gone to get me this up front about things. Sam pretty much went right to angry, Susan and Teresa on the other hand were downright pissed off.

"She did what?" Susan said. "That selfish little bitch. God, I'm so sick of her crap. I didn't really want to hunt with her anyway."

Teresa rolled her eyes, "Serious drama queen. I ran into her a few weeks back, plastered out of her mind and crying about how her boyfriend cheated on her. I know for a fact she slept with at least two other guys while she was with him. They'd been on and off for months. Whatever. I'm here to hunt, that's it. Glad you have someone Dean, you deserve it."

"Same here," Susan stated. "Yeah, sure it's nice to see you again but this is a hunt, not a date. Seriously."

I didn't think I'd ever be happy to have women say they weren't interested, but I was this time. "Good. Sam, it's taken care of. Don't worry about it. Where are we on the actual hunt?"

Sam ground his teeth a bit, exhaled but refocused on the job at hand. "I brought them all up to speed on what's going on with Jacob and the consensus pretty much is this. You, Gerald and I trail a few when they go out to hunt tonight and take two down. You and I get them back to the Bunker and deal with that. Everyone else will be on gathering intel duty and try to figure out what's going on. Once Jacob's in the clear, I'll see where they're all at and deal with it from there, you and Coyote head back home."

I took a quick look around, no one was giving me any pissy looks or seemed to think like I was expecting special treatment because I was retired. They all seemed just fine with me bailing, which should have made me feel better but it only made me feel awkward. I wasn't used to not being in the life a hundred percent.

Gerald raised his beer bottle towards me, "One and done. That's what you said right? We get it. You're helping a kid and a friend. It's all good."

"Thanks, all of you."

"No worries," Joey said, "Besides, if you came back full time where we would get all our sweet rides?"

I laughed, "Good point. You can't wrench for shit. I saw what you did last time you tried to do your own oil change. Downright disgraceful."

"Why do it yourself when you can take it somewhere else? I'm just a lazy ass Mexican after all."

He was far from lazy, and wasn't even Mexican but we all got the joke. "You guys eat yet?" I asked, "We've got some time to kill since the sun's still up."

Susan and Teresa nodded, "Ate on the way in," Susan said. The guys pointed at the trash cans which I hadn't noticed had takeout bags in them.

"Oh, well guess I'll just go grab something then. Sam?"

"I'll go with, there's some stuff the cameras caught I want to tell you about and they've all heard about it already."

"Cool. Let's jet."

He grabbed the laptop and we left. We hadn't even made it down the stairs before he started apologizing, "Sorry about Shayna. If I'd known she was that loose of a cannon I would have told her not to come."

"Dude, not your fault. It was bound to come up sooner or later. May as well be sooner."

"That's fucked up though," he said as he unlocked the car door.

"Sam, drop it. We both know how I was before Coyote. It's no big deal. What did the cameras catch?"

"More comings and goings, too many. Something's brewing Dean, I can feel it. The HQ house, as you dubbed it had five more visitors, the one I shot the flare at had two and the other one had three of the same cars that went to the HQ house show up. I have no idea how many vamps are actually here but they are all linked somehow. Gerald only found four kills and I get the feeling a lot of these visitors are just passing through."

"Do you think this is a trap of some kind for us or hunters in general?"

"No, I don't think they know we're here and the kills were pretty well hidden. They're not trying to attract attention, Gerald is just a damn good hunter and spotted the signs."

"Looking more and more like the monsters aren't liking the new improved way you're doing things now. Didn't Oliver run into that too? Once he got on the scene the bad guys started upping the ante?'

He frowned as he turned into a Red Robin, finally some decent food, "Yes. I just find it hard to believe monsters could work together. I mean, most werewolves don't even know they're monsters. All the shapeshifters we've come across are seriously disturbed and vamps tend to be selfish as all hell."

"Common enemy can make people put up with a lot crap, look at how often we've teamed up with Crowley. He may be an ass but he's the ass we know."

Sam winced and looked like he was about to be sick, "Really Dean? You couldn't come up with better phrasing on that?"

"Sorry. If the wolves are purebloods they know what they are and it's not like bittens don't figure it out eventually. It's just a thought Sam, it could just be a big ass nest, like the Alpha had going."

"I guess." He wasn't really sold on the idea, I wasn't either but it wasn't my concern.

We got inside, ordered, mulled over various new and disturbing theories on the possible monster coalition that he could be facing and went back to the hotel. It was getting dark, which meant we needed to get our stakeout on. We got back to the motel, Sam pulled up the camera feeds and looked over the last hour or so. "Flare house has two cars in front of it, HQ house seems quiet and the third house seems to be the place to be. Lots of activity there."

My brain kicked into plan mode, "Gerald, you take flare house, Sam and I will watch the party house. Trail whoever leaves and try to catch them in the act. Let's make sure they're vamps before we take off heads and take silver bullets and blades just in case." I realized I had just sort of stepped all over Sam's toes and taken charge, "That's if you're up for that Sam."

He gave me a quick smile and nodded. "Sounds good."

Joey and Sherm stood up, "Gerald should back you Dean, two cars will work better for trailing these guys. We'll take the other house and the girls are going to watch HQ house," Sherm said, "We talked some more after you left. Too many variables, we want to cover all the bases. You got enough of those fancy ear things for that Sam?"

You never expect to hear a word like variable come out of Sherm's mouth, but, like most of us, there was a lot more to him than most people picked up on.

"Sure," Sam answered. "I'll go grab them, be right back."

Sherm gave me a pretty intense look after Sam left, "What's on your mind Sherm?"

"Silver bullets? What are you ponderin' here Dean?"

"Like I said earlier, monsters may be taking notice that less hunters are dying and more of them are. That many vamps moving around in broad daylight? Not buying it. Something's up, guaranteed. So we go in loaded for everything, not just vamps."

The whole room seemed to pause, if I had to guess I'd say they were all re-evaluating things that had happened over the last few months, taking the new theory into account and thinking ahead as to what that could mean.

"Shit, not good," Teresa said.

"Not at all," I agreed. Sam came back in, noticed the mood shift but didn't comment. He handed an earpiece to Gerald, one to Sherm and one to the girls then gave me one and put the last one in his ear. "Test them."

We all clicked them on and went one by one, they all worked.

"Good," Sam said, "Let's go. Keep a decent distance from the houses, with that much traffic going to in and out they might notice a car parked right outside."

They all nodded and filed out, Sam and I waited till they all left and he looked at me, "Ready for this?" he asked.

"Yeah. Let's save a kid."

Sam and I piled into the car, pulled out then my phone rang, it was Gerald. "Put me on speaker, gotta to talk to Sam."

"You could have just called him." I pointed out as I pushed the speaker button. "Go."

"Wanted you to hear this too. Sweet fucking car Sam! I'm hella jealous! Dean, I want an upgrade."

Sam was just about glowing, "Thanks man. It was my birthday present from him."

"Really? When was your birthday?"

"Couple of days ago," Sam answered.

"Well, happy birthday Sam. Dean? When we're done here we're talking about new wheels for me."

I laughed, "You can't afford to pay for all the work I put into this one."

"Oh we'll work something out, I promise."

"We'll see."

He got serious. "You two hang out around that intersection west of the house. I'll sit a bit closer in and let you know when a car heads your way. Less likely to attract attention that way. Sound good?"

"Yeah," I answered, "Got it."

"Good. Talk later." He hung up, Sam was still smiling.

"So, since you've got the killer ass car now, you'd better up your chick getting game." I told him, "Don't let all this horsepower and sexiness go to waste."

Then Sam managed to surprise me, "Oh it won't, trust me." He didn't seem the least bit uncomfortable with the thought, usually he'd look away or just change the topic. Now, I never exactly wanted him to be like me when it came to that whole part of life, I had my reasons for being the one night stand guy and he had his for being how he was. Riding shotgun with him and taking that step back I'c could see just how much he'd changed over the last year. I cast a big shadow over him all his life, I hadn't ever planned it that way but it was all tied up with being the older one. Coyote had made the comment that everyone grows up at some point. Our lives were so far from normal we never did the whole move out and build your own life away from the family that most people do. He'd tried but it hadn't been in the cards. Sam had never lacked self confidence but he had usually always deferred to me, whether or not I was right or wrong. He'd been free of that since I'd quit and I saw just how much I'd held him back without meaning to. I felt this odd sense of accomplishment, even with all the stupid mistakes I'd made and the jacked up things I'd done he'd still managed to grow up into a damn fine man. I wasn't sure if it was truly my place to feel like I raised him right but since I'd done more than my fair share of being the responsible one in this fucked up family of ours, I'd earned some of the right to be proud of him. I really didn't need to worry about him anymore, didn't need to protect him. I still would, but I didn't need to. Maybe riding shotgun wasn't all that bad after all.


	27. Familiar Face, Wrong Place

We pulled up to the intersection, pulled off the street into a small part and settled in to wait. Sam got out, popped the trunk as I worked my way around to the back.

"Here," he said as he started pulling weapons out of the trunk, "The shotgun with dead man's blood darts will be too obvious so use the crossbows. Hope your aim is still good." He handed me a tiny ass crossbow that had the arms folded up against the stock.

"Oliver?"

"Yup." He added a brace of small arrows that had had tubes of blood worked into them, "As soon as the arrows hit they inject the blood into the skin."

"Sounds good, got bullets for my 1911?"

He frowned, "No, sorry, but I have a spare 9 mil with a silencer you can use that will hold the bullets I do have."

"We going all assassin on monsters now?"

"Less noise, less cops. It works."

I took the gun, shoved the machete into my jacket, and hooked the crossbow around my belt using the clip on the end of stock, it was small enough that my jacket would cover it, then I wrapped the brace of arrows around my wrist. It felt odd carrying all that again. We were there for maybe twenty minutes when Gerald's voice rang in our ears.

"Honda Accord, black, license plate EY1C25 headed your way. Three people in it, two girls and a guy. Once chick is dressed like an emo gypsy complete with black hair, the other has brown hair and is in jeans, knee high black combat boots and a white shirt. The guy is in a grey t-shirt and jeans. He's blonde with a ponytail and is a scrawny tall guy."

"On it." Sam said, we saw the car pass just as we got into our car. Sam gunned the engine and got behind them. I looked over my shoulder and saw Gerald's car swing in behind us.

"Gerald's on our tail."

"See him," Sam replied.

The Accord turned onto the freeway and headed west away from the town we were in. Sam and Gerald played tag with it to keep any suspicion of them being followed to a minimum. About thirty minutes later they pulled off and headed into downtown Broken Arrow. After a few minutes navigating through the more industrial part we ended up in a shadier dive bar district. That got all of our attention, "Hunting ground," I said.

"Definitely."

They pulled up in front of an alley, emo gypsy chick got out, "I'll grab her, you and Gerald follow them."

"Yell if you need help," he said as I got out.

"Sure thing." Emo gypsy chick had on one of those long, flowy, ruffled black skirts, sandals that laced up ankle, a sleeveless block top and a chunky silver belt. Her hair was long but the right half of her head was shaved making her look like a punk emo gypsy which was one genre too many in my opinion. She had a bunch of bracelets on her right arm, a few of them were those charm ones that seemed to have a bunch of things hanging off of them. I stayed behind her and a good distance away as she sidled up to a few guys and seemed to be asking for a smoke. They all turned her down and walked off. She wasn't really in the right neighborhood for what she was wearing. She would have done better wearing a tight skirt, heels and something flashy. She started walking east down the sidewalk and the crowds started to change. More emo, less dive bar. She must be homing in on her people.

As she got closer to what looked like a goth club she hunched her shoulders forward and started walking a bit differently. She was really getting into character for this. By the time she made it to the line to get in she seemed like this sad, hopeless, lost girl who probably spent her days watching Twilight and Vampire Diaries and writing about the darkness of her soul. She blended right in. I stepped into the shadow of an alley as I certainly didn't blend in with this crowd.

It took her about fifteen minutes but she finally got her arms around some guy who'd just walked out staggering and was guiding him over to the alley. I ducked down the alley and crouched behind the garbage dumpster, another thing I hadn't missed. Smelling like trash after a hunt or a stake out.

"You're so stunning, like the pale moon on a stormy night." The guy slurred. "Untouched by the darkness that surrounds as all."

Wow, this was getting painful fast. Poor guy, if he honestly thought he'd score with lines like that he needed some serious help.

"You're the stars to my moon." She managed to say that with a straight face. If she wasn't more than likely a monster I would have given her a round of applause for being able to pull that off.

He leaned down for a kiss, she let him and shoved him into the wall. Here we go. I unhooked the crossbow and tucked an arrow into the groove and pulled back the string.. Sam didn't know I'd actually kept up on my hunting skills when it came to guns and I'd spar with Cougar or Coyote a couple times a month. I wasn't willing to get completely out of shape, not as long as Sam was still hunting. I wasn't at all prepared for the knife she pulled out of her skirt though.

The alley lights flashed off the edge of the blade as she sliced it across his throat then she pulled out a handful of hypodermic needles and started drawing blood from his arm as fast as she could. What the hell? I shot an arrow into her neck.

She pulled the dart out, "What the fuck?"

Then she turned my direction and bared her fangs and I immediately had two problems on my hands. First, they weren't vampire fangs, they were werewolf ones and second I recognized her. Barely but I did, "Kate? What the hell are you doing?

"Dean?" A long second passed. She still hadn't learned to hide her emotions well, she went from sad, to disgusted, to angry then settled on resigned. I was expecting her to talk, but she didn't, she lunged right at me, claws all the way out and growling.

I backed up fast, pulled the gun and shot her in the stomach. She hadn't even bothered to try to dodge it, she could have, wolves can move that fast and it wasn't like she hadn't seen it coming. She tried to hit my gun out of my hands but I blocked her, she wasn't even trying.

"Kate stop!" I had no idea what was going on but she hadn't taken this guys' heart, she wasn't hungry. There was no reason to have killed that guy. The silver was starting to take effect, she was panting and her hand was clutched to her stomach.

"I fucking hate you, all of you." She gasped as she slid to the ground, "Damn you to hell. I tried Dean, I did but between you and them, I had no choice. I had to pick a side."

I tucked my gun back in my waistband and crouched down near her. I stayed out of range of her claws though. "What are you talking about?"

She gave me a weak glare. "Like you don't know. It's Sam's fault. He got all you bastards organized and now no one, not even monsters like me who try to do the right thing are safe. I got chased out of everywhere, I swear their monitoring animal hearts purchases now, or at least it seems like it. I was so tired of running, I was about to just end it when a vampire came to me. Said that they were getting pressured too and that if we could band together we could fight back. I didn't want to at first, I just wanted to die but they had other werewolves with them, other purebloods like me. I..." Her eyes started going out of focus, then she snarled, took a deep breath and kept talking. "I would have a pack, protection or so I thought. I joined them then they came."

"Them who?"

"I don't know who or what they are," she said as her voice grew weaker and blood pooled on the ground next to her. "I never got close enough to smell them but they're the ones giving orders. If we don't do what they say, bad things happen. No feeding," she whispered, "Take blood for vampires to keep them alive, don't make it look like they did it. Only eat animal hearts. Gather information..." she stopped talking.

"Kate! Are they gathering intel on hunters?"

She slowly nodded her head. "They are coming for you, all of you. Like you come for us. Finish it Dean, please. If they find out I saw you and didn't kill you..."

Yes she was a monster, yes she'd just killed a guy, but none of this was her fault. She'd stayed out of trouble, stayed clean yet here she was, bleeding out five feet from a corpse.

"No, I can take that bullet out, you'll heal. Move on like before." She'd killed her own damn sister to save us, I wasn't going to kill her in an alley.

Her claws retracted and she touched my hand. "I'll just get killed by some other hunter or them." Her eyes were pure human as she stared into mine, "Thank you for letting me go all those years ago, giving me a chance but this is how it was going to end one way or other. Please."

I really had no choice here, if it had just been Sam and I on this I could have pulled it off but the others were in on this and they wouldn't be too keen on letting a wolf go. "All right, just tell me, do they know we're here?"

"I don't think so but I'm not all that close to the ones in charge."

"Okay," I drew my gun, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. I put the gun against her chest and pulled the trigger. The silencer kept the sound from filling the alley but I felt the push against my palm and she went limp. "I'm so sorry sweetheart, so sorry this had to happen to you."

I stared at her for a minute, she looked so innocent somehow, I always hated this part of the job. When it sinks in that you've taken a life. Sometimes it doesn't bother you, they came at you, they were killing people, torturing people, whatever. Then, sometimes, it does. When you have to kill someone that had tried to fight, tried to co-exist somehow and all their efforts still end up with them paying the ultimate price and you delivering it.

"Dean," Sam's voice echoed in my ear. "Bagged the chick, she was a vamp. I double checked. Got her in the trunk."

I pushed the button, "Everyone but Gerald and Sam get back to the hotel now. Things have changed. Gerald, are you sure he's a vamp?"

There was a stretch of silence, "Gerald?"

"Sorry man," Gerald replied, "Just giving him a second dose. I got lucky, he tried to take me out so I got an up close look at the teeth."

"Good. Sam, come get me. We need to talk now. I'll turn my phone GPS on."

"Okay."

I turned on my GPS then carried her and the guy behind the dumpster and kept a watch on the street. The alley only had one entrance which was fortunate. Sam rolled up, parked on the street and joined me.

"What's up?"

I didn't say anything, just walked to the dumpster and pointed.

His mouth dropped open for a second, then he got deadly serious, "Is that Kate?"

"Yeah, she knifed the guy and was harvesting the blood for vamps." I gave him the lowdown on what Kate had told me and what I'd done.

"Fuck."

"Putting it mildly," I agreed.

"Who do we think is running this?"

"Don't know," That was kind of a lie, I had an idea, this sounded way too strategic for a run of the mill monster. I just didn't want to say it. Sam shot me that look that told me he knew I was holding back, but, at that moment I just wanted to get back to the Bunker, help Jacob and go home. This was becoming way too similar to the jobs that end up horrifically bad for us. I was done with those. Done.

"Let's get back, tell the others and head home. If we leave now we can be back there tomorrow," I said. He was torn and torn bad, he knew what kind of rabbit hole we were looking at but he'd made a promise to me too. "Look, we can set up the vamps, drain 'em, do the thing with the blade and you can be back out here in two or three days. Put the others in a holding pattern till you get back. Or you can give me your keys, I'll head back to the Bunker, deal with Jacob then bring your car back when we're done. Your choice."

His eyes dropped back down to look at Kate and his face went utterly still for a moment, which reminded me a bit too much of how Oliver can look at times, "I'll drive. Jacob's suffered long enough. I'll deal with this mess afterwards."

We walked out of the alley, I called 911 as we drove off so neither of them had to sit there any longer than needed. It felt wrong, leaving her like that but there wasn't a lot we could do. It was just part of the job, a job where I'd walked away from too many corpses of people that had tried to do the right thing and paid for it in blood.


	28. Losing to Win, Winning to Lose

We made it back and joined the others back at Gerald's room. I guess it said a lot of what they thought of me to pull back without any actual explanation especially when I'd been out of the game for a year.

"What was that all about?" Susan asked.

"The vamp I followed turned out to be a werewolf." Every single pair of eyes in that room got wide, then real damn thoughtful. "She's dead, that's not all though. She sliced a guy's throat and was using a needle to pull blood from his veins for her vamp buddies. Sam? Gerald? Your vamps do anything weird?"

Sam shook his head, "Lured some dude into a corner booth and went for the throat."

"Mine came at me," Gerald said, "Something must have tipped him off. Don't know."

"Okay, there's more." I told them what Kate had said, I didn't go into how I found out. I hadn't really come up with a way to do that that didn't sound insane. No way in hell I beat a werewolf into talking that fast. They all knew it too. They looked at me, then at Sam.

He took a deep breath, this was going to get really uncomfortable fast. "We know, or rather knew, the werewolf."

Sherm crossed his arms, "Start talking."

"Sam, I'll tell it." If they were going to be pissed, they needed to be pissed at me, not him. "It was years back, we were on a case..." I told them everything. When I was done I was kind of shocked they weren't yelling at us or storming out.

Sherm looked at Joey who gave a slight nod, Gerald just shrugged, Susan and Teresa seemed more sad for what Kate had gone through than angry that we hadn't taken her out.

"Dean, don't panic," Joey said, "We've all let one or two go. The hunters that don't are the ones you want to steer clear of, they're freaking loco man."

Sam and I both relaxed, a lot. I remembered a few hunters, like Gordon, who'd lost sight of the larger picture over the years. It was an easy trap to fall into, especially if you didn't have someone to keep you sane. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Back to the problem at hand, the rest of this group is bound to notice that the caterers didn't show back up with the main course and they'll start sniffing around for hunters. Sam and I have to go handle the kid. I know it's not really my place anymore but I'd tell all of you to lay low and keep some distance from those houses. Trail them if you have to but don't get close enough for them to sniff you out. Not until we know more about what's going on."

Sherm raised an eyebrow at me, "Only way to do that is get close enough to hear them talk, or get one somewhere where we can make it talk. Unless Sam has some other new toys hidden in the trunk of that new ride of his."

"I don't, but I know someone who has a lot more toys than I do." Some sort of idea had hit him and I was about four steps behind wherever he'd just headed. "Follow them, get photos, clear as you can. Email them to me. Get license plates too. I've got someone who can find out anything about anyone, even the undead. Don't hunt them, don't engage them. Just get me photos. Three days tops we'll know what names they go by, where they're holing up and probably their original date of birth."

And he'd headed straight into genius land. Felicity could track these bastards some way or other, she was the woman who'd hacked the Vatican after all. This would be child's play for her. I almost started laughing because it was such a sweet idea. "Awesome!"

"Who is this person?' Teresa asked.

"Not a hunter, a computer hacker. Best in the world. I'll send this stuff over to them, you guys split up between different hotels. Stay in groups though and just sit tight until I get back in touch. Please."

I noticed he was being very careful with details about Felicity. I'd have to ask him why when we left, it's not like hunters can't keep secrets.

"Gerald? Let's get your vamp in the backseat of my car. Dean and I will leave now, try to send me photos tonight. We have a window of a few hours here before it gets back to whoever's running this thing that three of their people are missing. Use it."

"Got it," Gerald said then looked around the room at the rest of them, "You heard the man, move."

"Drive safe guys," Susan said.

"We will," I replied, "Keep your heads down." They all nodded and Sam, I and Gerald walked out.

Sam pulled his car right next to Gerald's and we shifted a moaning, half drugged, lanky ass vampire into the back of our car. Sam grabbed zip ties from his pocket and trussed him up nice and neat.

Once he'd shut the door he turned back around to look at Gerald. "Keep them safe."

Gerald smiled, "I'll keep the hounds leashed up nice and tight. You two do what you need to, we'll hunker down for now."

The two of them exchanged a quick hug, then I got the long, speculative stare from Gerald, "You haven't lost a step Dean. Sniffed all that out quick as can be."

I shrugged. "It's a gift, or a curse. I always seem to land right in the middle of a pile of screwed up crap. Been happening all my life, I think I attract it."

"Or you're just smart enough to see the patterns before anyone else does, that's a rare talent."

"It's a retired talent." I knew where he was going to go with this and I didn't need to hear it.

"Yeah, retired." He let it go, reached his hand out and pulled me in for my own quick hug. "I guess I'm off to play vampire paparazzi. Let us know when you get back home."

"Sure thing," Sam assured him.

"Crazy ass world keeps gettin' crazier," He muttered as he walked off.

"That it does," I said to Sam.

Sam shook his head and shrugged, "Let's roll."

"Yeah."

We covered the vamp up with blankets, grabbed some drive thru coffee and hit the freeway.

"So," Sam said about twenty minutes after we hit the open road, "Should we tell them to look for demons? This is some high grade planning here. Crowley could be up to something."

That'd been my first thought too, but now that I'd had some time to mull things over demons didn't sit right. "Crowley won't do anything that doesn't benefit him. Killing hunters doesn't get him a damn thing. Monsters have nothing to barter, they go to Purgatory and we already know how opening Purgatory went last time. It wasn't good for anyone, even Crowley. No way he'd repeat that mistake. What Kate said, that they're hunting hunters, that's not what demons do. They don't hunt, they never come at you straight on, with the rare exception like Abaddon. No, I think there's something else going on. Just don't know what yet. I know I'm usually jump to assumptions guy but not on this one. This you need to let play out, follow the leads."

"Great."

"Sorry, next time someone asks for help I'll stand down. I need to stop bringing the curse of Dean Winchester to the hunting world."

We cleared the city limits and I felt the car accelerate, "Like that's what's going on here. This didn't happen overnight and you know it. Gerald wasn't wrong, you see patterns most people miss."

"Sam please, you thought it was weird, so did he. He told us they were acting cagey. I'm not some super hunter, c'mon. We all caught things. It wasn't just me. I just happened to be the one that ran into Kate, that's all."

"But you were the.."

"Sam! Drop it. You had the genius idea about sending pics to Felicity, that will help you guys much more than I can. You don't need me. Let's just get back to the Bunker and cure Jacob so I can get home and you can get back to business." If he'd spun his head any faster he would've given himself whiplash. I'd slipped back into my giving orders tone. I thought he was mad that I was giving him orders again, "Sorry, shouldn't have snapped."

"No," he said as he shifted his eyes back to the windshield. "I shouldn't have pushed. Just habit I guess, jobs like this, I'm used to you being the one in charge. I've been cherry picking jobs for too long. You're right, I don't need you, just..." He left it hanging.

"I can't, I won't. End of discussion."

"I know." He stopped talking, cranked the tunes up and we spent the next few hours staring out the windows, not saying a word but thinking way too much.


	29. Checking Things Off The List

I took over driving about two hours in, Sam was fading and fading fast. He, unlike me, hadn't taken a nap so was still functioning on whatever sleep he'd gotten the night before. We were pushing sixteen hours since we'd left the Bunker and had about two more hours to go. He passed out as soon as he got into the passenger seat. We'd stopped at a rest stop and dosed the vamps again. They were barely moving which I was just fine with. We may have to let them sober up a bit before we set blood next to them, I doubt they'd even notice it was there with they way they were now.

I texted Coyote we'd be back with her gift wrapped vamps in about two hours and that Sam was sleeping so I'd talk to her when we got back. Kate's face and what she said kept coming back to me, the more I thought about it the more what she said about whoever it was behind all this had something personal going on, which would make sense if it was a monster. It doesn't get much more personal than getting killed by hunters. But I didn't really know of a monster that would be powerful enough to rally them all together. Crowley had knocked out most of the bigwigs when he was trying to find Purgatory, sure, someone will always rise up to fill a power vaccuum but stilll. I chased my mental tail for another hour then gave up and started thinking about home, which should have put me in a good mood, but it didn't. Paranoia was putting a damper on everything, a lot of hunters know where I live and anyone can be made to talk. Did I want to bring the monsters down on the heads of my friends out there? I know Coyote wouldn't want to move and I sure as hell didn't want to either. Maybe it was time to check into all of Magnus's wards and see if there was something that could be used to trap monsters. He'd had a bunch of them in a zoo after all, he had to know how something about how that all worked, short of getting rid of all the doors and windows. More things I never wanted to have to worry about again.

We pulled up and I shook Sam awake, "Hey we're here."

"Huh? Uh, oh." It took him a second or two to get functioning then he opened the door, "Let's make sure Jacob isn't awake. No need for him to see us lugging bodies around."

"Good point." I told him. "Open the garage too, let's move all the cars in there. No one followed us but..."

He nodded, "Yeah, I get it."

A few minutes later the garage door opened, I pulled in, parked then went inside. I didn't make it much past the door into the Bunker before Coyote's arms went around me and her lips pressed into mine. All that stress from what we'd found out just melted away. I held her as close as I could and enjoyed every second of how it felt to have her body melding with mine, that indescribable sense of love that always coursed through me when she touched me. Her lips left mine for a second, "Welcome back." Then she kissed me again and stepped back.

I ran my hand down her back and let go, even though letting go was the last thing I wanted to do, "I almost want to leave and come back again to get another hug like that."

"Not allowed," she said with a smile, "I've officially decided that missing you sucks ass, even more than it used to. No more road trips for you."

"I have absolutely no problem with that at all.

I returned her smile but hers started to fade the longer she looked at me, "What happened?"

"Later, let's get the vamps locked up then we'll fill you guys in."

"All right, I'll help."

Her and I walked into the garage, Sam showed up a few seconds later. Her and Sam grabbed lanky guy out of the back seat, I threw the chick over my shoulder and we hustled into the dungeon. We grabbed some bowls, trussed them up by their legs, sliced their wrists and set the bowls underneath their arms to catch the blood. I stepped back and had to fight not to react as the blood started running along their skin and into the bowls. Sure, it'd been almost a decade since I'd tortured souls in Hell but some things never leave you, never dull in your mind and never seem like they're in your past. The memories are always right there, waiting for something to spike them and they come rushing back, feeling like it was just yesterday that you were gutting souls for fun. I turned away, Coyote was right behind me, she didn't say anything but she knew. I'd told her more about what I'd done in Hell than I ever told Sam. It never felt right telling him, things you don't want your little brother to know about you. I was too ashamed of breaking to want to open up about it back then, I still had to be the strong one plus there'd been too much going on to dwell into all of that. I didn't have to be that with Coyote, so after one of my many nightmares when I'd woken up in a cold sweat and couldn't get back to sleep she stayed up with me, she didn't ask questions, I just started talking. I could have gone and gotten a drink or ten but I'd promised myself I wouldn't do that when I moved in with her. I spent the rest of that night and most of the rest of the next day talking. That was the beginning of the decrease in nightmares. It'd worked so well that for most of that first month or two we'd spent whole days talking about all the shit I'd been through. One of the best decisions I'd ever made.

She took hold of my hand, squeezed it tight for a second and looked up at Sam, "How long should we leave them here?"

"An hour tops. I want to make sure they're good and starving so they react fast. I'll come back in, drop them, chain up one of their arms, grab the bowls, dump the blood and give them some that's fresh along with setting the curse box down. Hopefully this does it. Where's Krissy?"

"She's in a room with Jacob, they're watching movies on her tablet. First time he's wanted to do that in a few weeks too. I've been tweaking what I've done to his room every couple of hours since you guys left. After Dean told me to pull back from trying to block his energy spikes I tried to do something more along the line of wards, sort of. It seemed to quiet the spikes. I've been burrowing into your books too, would love to spend three months here just studying. The amount of knowledge that they collected, I still can't get over it."

"I've been here for years," Sam replied, "And I'm still blown away some times. Let's get out of here, I need some food."

"Yeah. Good idea." We shut the room behind us and went to the kitchen.

Once he and I got food in our mouths and had a chance to unwind she asked, "So, details? Neither of you look all that happy."

"There's a good reason for that," I told her what had happened and she reacted a bit differently than the other hunters did. She wasn't as surprised as they were for some reason, she just went straight to worry and looked at me. "I'm going home after this. Not staying here. They don't need me."

"You sure?"

I stood up, took my plate to the sink and set it down a little harder than I intended, both of them jumped when it hit the sink, "Yes. I'll check on the vamps, make sure they're still draining."

I went back to the dungeon and pulled open the bookcases just enough to see into the room. The flow of blood had slowed, their fangs were bared and their skin was all shriveled up and papery thin. That went faster than we'd thought. Either they hadn't eaten their fill for awhile or the blood we shot them up with affected them a lot more than we knew. This wasn't exactly how we'd usually treated vamps. I pulled out my phone and shot a text to Sam, "They're starving I think we should do this now." I sent him a pic of how they looked.

"Agree." He sent back, "I'll grab the blade. Coyote is going to have Krissy bring Jacob to the hallway outside of the dungeon so we can keep an eye on him when this goes down."

"Good."

A few minutes later Sam walked in along with Coyote. "I'll stand by the door," she said, "That way I can see both he and you guys. Oh, I made better verions of that amulet Sam found to keep the blade's influence from hitting us so hard. Here." She pinned pieces of paper that had a bunch of sigils written on them to our shirts, I pinned one to hers and then she gave one to Krissy when she showed up with Jacob in tow.

"Thanks," Sam said. "Ready?" He asked us. We all nodded. He and I walked into the dungeon, and closed the bookshelves behind us. The vamps hissed and tried to lunge at us while they were still upside down but were too weak to be much of a threat. We lowered them to the ground, shackled their arms to the wall on a long chain that gave them enough reach to get to the blade and each other but not the doors. Sam picked up the blood filled bowls and carried them out of the room, grabbed another empty bowl and the curse box and walked back in.

He set the curse box down within reach of the vamps, took a few steps back set the bowl down and held his hand over the bowl. "Hungry? Only enough for one of you, there's a blade in the box. Feel free to use it." He sliced along his forearm and the smell of iron rich blood filled the air. The vamps howled and lunged towards us, the Hunger driving them. They were mindless monsters who's sole purpose was to feed. They jerked back as soon as they hit the end of the chains and growled and whimpered, Sam let his blood dribble into the bowl and kicked it towards them.

Their eyes tracked it, the girl moved first and dove for the curse box. The lanky guy saw her move and that seemed to knock him out of his frenzy enough to use his longer reach to snag the box before she got it.

"Here we go," Sam shouted back towards the bookshelves. Lanky guy wrenched the lid open and grabbed the blade.

He stopped moving and his eyes started to glow with a pulsing yellow-ish green light, then he started laughing and speaking in a language that none of us had ever heard before. It was filled with such power, such violence that both Sam and I dropped to the ground and tried to back away. My brain started feeling like it was on fire. I heard Coyote scream, then somehow start chanting but her voice was filled with pain. What seemed like thousands of terrified voices filled the room and he gripped the blade tight as he lapped up the blood from the bowl. Once he'd finished he dropped it to the ground and focused on the female vamp who was cowering in terror.

He smiled and spoke again, but the violence was gone. I had to stop myself from crawling towards him, Sam started to move but I managed to get my hand on his arm and stop him. She wasn't so lucky. Adoration covered her face, she shuddered and moaned, he leered at her and licked some blood off his fingers, then beckoned her closer. She slowly crawled towards him, her eyes never leaving his face until she reached the end of her chain. Then she knelt there, tilted her head back and closed her eyes. He bent over and traced the blade along her cheek, not drawing blood, not yet. She arched her back and seemed like she was feeling the first orgasm she had since she'd been turned.

"Yes Great One, take me, please." She murmured.

He slid the blade down to her throat, dug the point in deep, severing her head. She toppled over, the head tumbling a few feet farther away and he looked at us. For a second nothing else mattered but going to him, every inch of my body wanted to feel that blade and join with the Goddess. Then everything stopped. His eyes stopped glowing and his whole persona changed.

"What did you do to me?" He shouted as he hurled the blade so hard it stuck into the wall. "Are you experimenting on us now?"

It took everything I had to switch gears. "Krissy? Coyote? What happened?"

"It's gone." I barely heard Coyote say, her voice was so weak. "He convulsed and screamed but now he's just sitting here stunned looking and saying it's gone."

"Really?"

Sam and I got up, shoved the bookcases apart and came face to face with Coyote who had Jacob on her lap her arms holding him tight. His eyes were wide as plates and he kept blinking like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. I slid the bookcases shut as fast as I could, no need to scar him anymore than he already was. Krissy was standing by the door.

"The bad place, the fog, it's gone. I don't feel it anymore." Then a huge smile broke out on his face and he started wiggling on her lap. She let him go and he ran right up to Sam and I and got one of his arms around each one of our legs. "Thank you! Thank you!"

Sam actually blushed a little before he knelt down and gently hugged him back, "You're welcome."

Coyote's eyes met mine, there were tears in her eyes and Krissy was already wiping away the tears from her cheeks. "Thank you so much guys." She crossed the room, picked Jacob up and gave us both huge hugs.

"Just glad it worked," I said as I let her go.

"Hey! Fucking hunters! I'll rip you to shreds!"

Jacob flinched and started shaking. "Who is that?"

"No one you need to worry about." Sam said. "Krissy?"

"Right," She left as fast as she could and we shut the door behind her.

Sam grabbed his machete and split the bookcases back apart. "You just saved a little boy, congratulations. If you want to keep this good streak going you can tell us about your friends and who's organizing your group."

He curled his lips and showed his fangs, "Bite me, or better yet, I'll bite you."

"All right, well think about it for a bit." Sam and I went over to the base of the chain that was attached to the female vamp and dragged her towards us so we stayed out of his range. We unlocked her, Sam handed me his machete and picked up her lifeless body. I kicked the head into the corner and used the machete to pull the curse box towards me, then I dug into my pocket and pulled out a bandanna. I wrapped that around the blade, jerked it out of the wall, dropped it into the box and closed the lid.

"What was that?" The vamp asked.

"Cursed blade, it needed another kill to free a kid. We figured we'd use you to do that. Thanks for the help."

"Bastards!" He yanked his chains but was still too weak to do much.

"Look, here's how this is going to work, you talk we get you food. You don't? You starve."

He growled and sat down, "Give me a break, you're going to kill me one way or another so why should I help you."

"I don't know, quick death versus feeling that hunger eating at you day after day, you decide." I still had the arrows around my wrist and the crossbow. I pulled it out, loaded one and shot him. "In the meantime, feel like shit some more. See ya soon." No way in hell was he getting out of those chains with that much dead man's blood in him and mostly starved. I picked up the curse box and the head and walked out. I pulled the bookcases shut, Coyote stood up and we left.


	30. Dystopian Dreamscapes

We caught Sam coming back in from the garage just as we reached the main room. He noticed the head in my hand.

"Was just coming to get that."

"Saved you a trip. You dumping her?"

"Yeah, will be back in about thirty."

He looked dead on his feet, "I can do that, you're trashed dude."

"I'm good. I'll pass out when I get back."

"All right, I dosed your new house guest up again, just to be safe."

"Thanks." He turned around and left.

Krissy walked in from one of the side halls looking way too serious for someone who just a huge problem solved for her and she had her and Jacob's bags with her, "I'm sorry, I've got to go. My friend I have watching the other kids just had a family emergency. She has to leave. I need to take Jacob home now. The oldest one can watch them until I get back but I don't like leaving them alone."

I set the curse box down on the table, "You sure?" I asked, "We don't really know if he's really clear of this thing." I shot a look at Coyote, "Are we?"

"His energy looked better, something definitely shifted. I think he's free of the blade. He may still have nightmares and all that but he should be acting more like a normal child now."

Just as she finished talking, Jacob showed up looking a little sad. Not traumatized sad but more like he was sad to be leaving. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and walked up to Coyote. "Bye Coyote. Thank for you helping me sleep and keeping the bad dreams away."

She smiled and gave him another tight hug, "Hang on. Let me give you something that will keep the bad dreams away no matter where you are." She jogged down the hall to his room. He looked around, "Where's Sam?"

"He had to take care of something," I said.

He frowned, "Oh. I..." The comic book they had been looking at was still on the table and his eyes drifted towards it.

"Would you like to take that with you?"

He shook his head but his eyes never left it, "No, it's his. That wouldn't be right."

"Give me a second." I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called him.

"Hey."

"Hey. Krissy has to take off, her friend that was watching the other kids had to bail, family emergency. Jacob wants to talk to you. Hold on." I gave the phone to Jacob, "Ask him, see what he says."

"Hi Sam,"

"Hi. You feeling better?"

"Yes. I,.." He got all nervous and started shifting his weight from foot to foot, "I was wondering if I could borrow that book we were reading." He looked up at me then rushed through the rest of it, "I read fast, Krissy could send it back when I'm done. I don't want to keep it, I just, um, I really like Batman and I hadn't seen those ones yet."

Sam didn't even take a second to think about it, "Of course. Keep it as long as you want. You have to promise me something though."

As soon as "Of course" was out of Sam's mouth Jacob started bouncing up and down with a huge grin on his little face. "Anything!"

"If you have a hard time, bad dreams, whatever, you let Krissy know and call any of us if you need to. Dean, me or Coyote. Any time you need us, we'll be here for you. Okay?"

"Okay, okay! Thank you Sam! This is so awesome!"

He was going to be just fine, it was nice to do a job that had a tangible happy ending. It'd been a long time since that had happened. He shoved the phone back into my hand, ran to the table, pulled the book off of it and held it like it was the some rare treasure. Then he dashed back over to Krissy, "Everyone back home is going to be so jealous!"

"Well, after you read it you have to share if they want to look at it."

He didn't look too happy about that, "I'll just take a long time to read it then."

Ten year old logic, had to love it.

"I think you made his year," I told Sam.

"Sounds like," I could hear his smile through the phone, "Gotta go. Be back soon."

"Sure." We hung up just as Coyote came back with a pouch. She went to hand it to Jacob and saw his hands were full of comic book. "Sam said he could borrow it."

"Nice!" She knelt down so she was eye level with Jacob, "Put this under your pillow, it will keep the bad dreams away."

"It works," I assured him, "Trust me."

He nodded very solemnly for a little kid, shifted the book so he could take the pouch and then tucked it into his pouch. "I will, every night. Promise."

"Good," She stood back up, gave Krissy another hug and stepped back. "Call anytime."

"I will," Krissy said, "I'll let you guys know when we get home. Thanks so much, for everything."

"No worries."

She nodded, put her hand on Jacob's shoulder, "Bye." He said with a little wave. They headed up the stairs and left.

Coyote and I stared at each other for a second. It seemed oddly quiet. Of course it always feels like that when you come to the end of a crazy ass day.

"Sam's not the only one who looks dead on his feet," she pointed out. "How about we go lay down?"

"Sure, guess we can take these off." I pulled the paper with all the warding on it off my shirt, she took hers off, "That blade was still way too damn strong even with these on."

"Won't argue with you there."

"Let me go lock this up then I'll join you."

"I'll come with. Don't really feel like letting you out of my sight again." There was a definite hint of something behind her words. Something I definitely liked.

"Ladies first," I gestured towards the hall as I picked the box back up.

"Damn, I wanted to stare at your ass but I can't say no when you're being all cute and chivalrous."

"Yeah, chivalrous, we'll go with that." I said with a wink.

"Pervert. I like it."

"I sure as hell hope so." She took the lead down the hall and I made sure to enjoy every minute of that view. We got the blade all tucked into it's drawer and went back to my room. I almost just laid down in my jeans and shirt when she stopped me.

"No, uh-uh, not when I can't roll away from the amount of body heat you put out, you fully dressed would be a million times worse. Strip Winchester."

I just couldn't let that go, so I put my arms out and fell backward onto the bed, sprawling all the way out. "Too tired to take clothes off."

She ran her tongue over her teeth, gave me an exasperated look and shook her head, "You can't be serious."

I just closed my eyes and slowed my breathing, "Won't be the first time I slept like this. Besides the room gets chilly, the clothes help keep me warm."

I heard a sigh and felt her hands start working the laces on my boots loose. "I'm only doing this because I know how long you've been up, so don't get used to it."

"Mmm-hmmm."

She got my shoes off, then started tugging off my jeans, fortunately I'd worn a looser pair so it wasn't too awkward. I was going for the full effect of being half asleep and barely helped at all. Now most days, all this attention would make me wake up pretty quick, especially with her, but the bed was comfy, I was stiff and sore from being in the car for hours at a time and feeling pretty good about how the whole Jacob thing ended. I did move my arms so she could get my shirt off without it being too much of a hassle. The coolness of the room actually felt pretty good on my skin.

"Now scooch," she ordered with a small shove against my chest.

I slid over and heard her pull her clothes off. The light clicked off, she shut the door and curled up next to me. I knew she wasn't really all that tired but damn it felt good to have her arms around me.

I felt her lips lightly press against the back of my neck, "Love you," she whispered.

"You too." Then I drifted off.

 _I was naked, so was she. The fires of Hell flickered and danced on the walls. Tormented souls screamed, the smell of searing flesh filled my nose and my mouth, I'd missed that smell. Here was where I was in charge, where I had power, where nothing could touch me. Not now, not after I'd said yes to him._

 _There was blood everywhere, I was covered in it. I'd stripped layer after layer of skin off her, just to hear her scream. At first she cursed at me, called me every name in the book in both languages she knew, then she started begging, then whimpering, then crying. It was almost time._

 _I straddled her, her eyes were almost completely out of focus. "You're not him..." she whispered._

 _"Oh no darlin' I am."_

 _Her head rolled to the side, I roughly pulled it straight again. "Now, now none of that. You know what Alastair said my special skill was?"_

 _"Not him, not him," she mumbled._

 _I ran my hand through the blood, the guts, the exposed nerves, her body twitched and she hissed in pain._

 _"He said that any two bit thug can torture someone for all eternity. Where the art lies in stripping a person of almost all their hope, then bringing them to the edge of oblivion. When they think they're mere seconds away from not feeling the pain anymore. Then bringing them right back."_

 _I snapped my fingers. Her body became whole again, perfect, and delicious. "Wait too long, they fade, do it too soon and it's not nearly as devastating. He said I had a special knack for knowing just when that moment was. I'm one of his best, just ask him."_

 _I saw the second her soul became whole again, her eyes cleared, mind bending fear flashed in them when she saw me hovering over her. "No! Stop Dean! Please! Fight it! Don't do this anymore!"_

 _"How sweet, you think there's any love for you left in here Coyote? Really? Well, there's love, but not the way you think. I don't love you, I love what I can do to you."_

 _"Dean! No!" Sam's voice blocked out the never ending screams. I looked left, he was suspended over a fire in an iron cage. Anywhere his skin touched the iron it was black and bubbling, but the pain didn't matter to him. Not one bit._

 _"This is so perfect, I don't have to do a damn thing to you Sam. I just have to make you watch me kill her over and over. The sight of your brother killing the love of his life is ripping you to shreds isn't it?"_

 _Tears of pain and hate streamed down his face, "You bastard. I'll..."_

 _"No, you won't. You won't do a damn thing."_

 _She started struggling against the shackles, whimpering. I looked down at her, I wanted her, I'd take her. It'd add that perfect touch to the torment Sam felt. Hell, I was ready to. The feel of her writhing under my blade had made me so hard it was starting to hurt. "Let's spice things up shall we?"_

 _I leaned down and got right outside of her. She felt me rub against her and tried to slide away but she couldn't. "No, no..."_

 _"Oh yes," The flames flickered off her sweat, "Let's see what this does." I set the tip of my blade against her forehead and slowly drew it down her face, lightly at first but the farther down I went the harder I pushed. As I moved the blade, I slid farther inside her. Her screams rose in pitch and volume as her body tightened around me from the pain of the blade piercing ever further into her flesh._

 _"No! God! Stop!" Sam howled._

 _I timed it so the point of my blade sliced through her navel as I finished thrusting into her. I rode out the waves of pleasure that sent through me. I had to have more, I had to._

 _A low pitched, thunderous growl came from behind me, I turned and a huge gray furred body slammed into me._

I couldn't breathe! I was taking huge sucking breaths but nothing was getting into my lungs. She was next to me, shit! I had to get away! I heard a crash as I landed hard on the floor, my head hit the corner of something, I still smelled the blood, felt it. No! No! A wall slammed into my back, I didn't know where I was. That smell was everywhere.

I saw her lunge upright, "Dean! What's wrong?"

She was covered in blood, I'd done that to her, I couldn't look at her. I couldn't think.

"Dean?" She reached for me.

"No! Don't touch me!" I shoved myself across the floor to get away. I hadn't enjoyed it, but it'd felt so good, so perfect.

"Okay, all right. I'll stay right here," she said in soothing tones.

I couldn't look at her, I'd...I'd...

"Babe?"

"Don't call me that, not right now." I buried my face in my hands and closed my eyes. Her voice, I wasn't there, it wasn't real. It'd felt so...so good. God what the fuck is wrong with me?

I had to know, know that she wasn't hurt...that at least, I had to...the blood, the screams, it all echoed through me. Dream, it was a dream, try to breathe. The feel of her under my blade...no! Don't think about it...stop...look at your hands. Look! Eyes fucking open idiot! It was so hard to look, there would be blood, there had to be. There wasn't, just scars, scars I'd put there. No blood. Breathe. Look at her, make sure.

"Pull...your shirt...up," my throat was too tight, it was hard to speak.

"Here, look." She didn't question, she trusted me, she was stupid to. I'd be the death of her, just like everyone else. Raise your eyes, look!

No blood, "N..no blood..." Just her skin and a few scars from fights.

I saw it again, heard their voices. Hers and Sam's. Sam! Get up! Check on him! I struggled to stand.

"Dean let me help..."

"No! Stay away.." Door, open the door. "Sam! Sam! Fuck! Sam!"

Make it down the hall, his room is right there. "Sam!"

"Dean? What's wrong?"

He's behind me. Turn around. Can't.

"Sam!"

"Right here man, right here."

He's in front of me, no burns. No cuts. Breathe. He's trying to hold me up, "No! Stay...away." The smell, the taste. Why can't I stop it? I..I have to leave. Get out, get home. Not here, not here. I shove against his arms but he doesn't let go. Get control back, then leave. Go home. Home, safe.

That smell, fading. I smell herbs, breathe. Think of home. Think...

Heart slowing down, I'm in the Bunker. I'm not there, not in Hell, not...Don't think about it! Bunker, they're alive. I'm human, not demon, human.

"Dean, come back, it was a nightmare," Sam said. Sitting on the ground, we were on the ground. My legs were cold, I was in my underwear.

"Dean?" Her voice, keep looking at the ground.

"I have to get out of here.." The words tumbled over each other, "Out. Home..."

"Babe, it was a dream," she said.

I pushed my way out of Sam's arms, my legs were shaky but I got up, "Pack your shit. I have to get out of here, now." Her hand was on my shoulder, I wrenched it away, "Now! Do it!"

I made it back to my room, slammed the door and leaned against it. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! One day, one goddamned day. I'd never had a nightmare like that, ever. Not with her in it, not doing that...not. I felt the knob turn and pushed off the door so she could open it.

"Let's talk about this..."

"No! No talking, not talking. Just pack." I didn't turn around to look at her, not with those images still searing into my brain. I got dressed, grabbed my bag, kept my eyes towards the ground and walked past her. "Garage, five minutes. Be there."

"Dean stop. Please."

Oh God, those words, why? I felt it again, the blood, everything, I almost tripped. "No! Just pack. Please."

Sam was standing right outside, "Give it time, it will pass. You know that."

I instinctively looked up at him, but in my head I was seeing him slowly burning to death, I winced and looked back down. "One day Sam, I was here for one day. I...never...not like that. Not what I just saw. Been months since..." I still couldn't form complete sentences so I stopped trying for a minute. He walked next to me, I tried again. "Call Roy if you need help, not me. Never again. I'm done. Sorry. Anyone else ever asks me for help, I'm sending them to you. You're the hunter now, not me."

He faltered and froze mid step, I kept walking. No more hunts, no more blood, no more torturing things, no more. Not after this.


	31. Rough Road Ahead

I burst through the garage door and leaned against her car, my hands were shaking as they rested on the hood. The cold sweats were starting up, goosebumps formed on my arms even though I wasn't the least but cold. I had beads of sweat running down my sides and my stomach was alternating from tightening into knots and feeling like I was five seconds away from bolting to the bathroom. The garage door squeaked open, I lifted my hands off the hood and there were two perfectly formed sweaty hand prints on the top. I probably shouldn't be driving but sitting in the passenger seat and not having something to take my mind off my thoughts would let me spiral much farther down than I should.

"Coyote?"

"Yes. It's me. Sam's still completely shell shocked in the kitchen. Dean, look at me."

"No. Unlock the doors." I hadn't grabbed her keys when I got dressed.

"You're in no shape to drive." I heard her step closer and saw her out of my peripheral vision. "Come back inside, please Babe."

"Coyote, I'm..." I forced myself to give her a quick look, then the disgust hit me and I had to look away, "I'm begging you, please. I need to get away from here, from vamps hanging in dungeons, from headless corpses, from killing. I need to drive or else I'll dwell on it even more. Please."

"So, no explanations? You're going to leave Sam and I in the dark here?"

"I can't, not right now. I'm sorry, I am." The car beeped and the locks popped. "Thank you."

"Get in, don't take off. I'm going to go talk to Sam. I'll be back."

"Wait, look at me. Is this the blade?"

A minute or so passed, when she answered it was in a very quiet voice, "No, the blade isn't affecting you. Thank him."

"Him who?"

"Your wolf. He's very near the surface right now. Whatever you dreamed, it affected your Spirit so deeply that he actually manifested within your mind. That's very rare for people who aren't Shamans."

"I saw him, just before I woke up. He plowed right into me."

"Thank him. I'll be right back." I barely heard a sound as she walked away.

"Hey, wolf?" I didn't hear anything of course but I felt...something, a presence that was both outside of me and inside, like it was stuck. "Thanks for waking me up. I don't know where that came from. Those...those things that happened. I should have listened to you. We weren't ready for this. We may never be. I'm not going to tell you what to do, you've helped me enough. If you want to hang out close to the surface, cool. I'm going to need all the help I can get to drive us home."

There was a sense of affirmation and the presence faded just enough that it seemed more like a thought I should be remembering than a fully formed idea. I tried to calm down, I closed my eyes and started counting breaths. By the time Coyote made it back the sweats had stopped and I didn't feel an inch away from having my heart jump out of my chest.

The garage door started to open, Coyote was opening the car door so it had to be Sam rolling it up. I gritted my teeth and looked up, sure enough he was standing there. Worried didn't even touch how he looked, scared to death would be a lot more accurate. I started her car, pulled forward a few feet and came to a stop in front of him. I didn't look at him though. "I'll call you when we get back."

"Dean, this is insane. You're a mess, you're pale as a sheet and death gripping that wheel. Wait a few hours at least. Talk to us. You wouldn't let her or I drive in this condition."

"I've driven in worse conditions. I just...I need out. I'll explain later, I promise."

"You sure as hell better."

I nodded, he stepped back and I pulled out. I didn't turn on the radio, didn't talk. The only thing I was focused on was the road. I'd been on the road so long, in so many varying states of emotional distress that I'd found a trick to use it to my advantage. I counted the broken yellow lines or trees or bushes or whatever as I drove. They went by so fast I had to really concentrate to not lose count. As soon as we hit the road I started, one, two, three, four...I just hoped by the time I hit a few thousand I'd finally forget how it felt when I was on top of her, feeling her clench around me and reveling in the screams of the two most important people in my life.

She spent the first half of the drive trying to get me to talk. I just kept my mouth shut. How would I even describe that to her? That I was thoroughly enjoying ripping her to shreds and raping her while covered in her blood? That I'd made Sam watch just for fun? She eventually gave up and stared out the window. At some point, I'd lost track of time when I was trying to remember what hundred thousand number I was at, she'd nodded off. I don't think she meant to but driving in utter silence for hours will lull most people to sleep.

The feelings had faded but I could still see it so clearly in my head. I had to start looking for reasons, what had triggered it. I thought back over the day and it started making sense pretty fast. I'd forgotten. I'd forgotten how hunting could take you from sheer joy to utter desoloation to complete disgust and then back to joy in mere hours. I'd hadn't been prepared for it, not after a year of sheer bliss and no pain. Sure, her and I had talked about all the crap from my past, and that pulled things up but it was old pain, old feelings. Not new stimulus and the last six or seven months I'd gotten so much better that we hadn't had to have those talks nearly as much. I'd been happy, cushioned in my anti-hunting bubble and basically stress free.

Since showing up at the Bunker to help Jacob I'd gone from frustrated with research, to ecstatically happy when I had my revelation about Coyote and I, to having to kill someone I knew and had hoped would never have to hurt, to watching a female vamp go to her death in the middle of an orgasm from what I could tell, then back to happy when Jacob had turned out all right. Toss in the things the blade had made me feel to the mix and it made perfect sense why my scarred and trashed psyche would mesh all that together in a dream.

The problem was how I'd felt in the dream. Most of my torturing other people nightmares the people were mostly faceless, sometimes it'd be Sam or Mom or someone else I knew, but most of the time I was happily carving away at some random person. I'd never felt turned on by it though, demons don't enjoy things the way humans do. The lust or cravings they feel are driven by this emptiness so it's never real lust, it's just a need to do something to hurt someone. This had felt like human lust, it wasn't hollow. It was real. When Sam had screamed as I went inside her there was a sense of triumph about it. Like I had won something. That was new. The Mark and First Blade dreams was cold killing. I needed the kill but there was no sense of victory about it, it was like satisfying a craving.

My brain had taken something that I thought I could keep pure, my love for her, and twist it into something so dark, so evil. What I'd said about my special skills was almost word for word what Alastair once told me. He felt that because I'd killed things my whole life that had given me some special insight into the soul. The other thing he'd said was the best kind of torture was shattering and corrupting love. Now I understood why. I was so disgusted and ashamed at what I'd done that as we pulled up to the house all I wanted to do was drop her off, get into Baby and leave. I didn't deserve her, I couldn't even look at her. How the hell could I ever lie next to her again, feel that love again, that sense of wholeness that I'd just found less than forty eight hours ago. One day, one nightmare and everything was ruined.

I reached over without looking and shook her awake, "We're home."

I didn't wait for her, I just grabbed my bag, got out, walked to the door, unlocked it and went straight to the garage. I fumbled and clicked on the light, grabbed her keys, threw my bags into the backseat and slid into the front. Her engine started up, it was so automatic for me to start her that I hadn't even noticed I'd stuck the keys into the ignition. She sounded good, for some insane reason hearing her purr helped clear my head, maybe because there was nowhere on this planet that I felt as safe and in control as I did in her. My hand went to the radio, there was a decent classic rock station out here, I tuned it in, leaned back, closed my eyes and just felt the vibrations from her engine flow through me as the music played.

"Dean! Don't you dare!" Coyote snapped.

I jumped and opened my eyes. "What?"

She'd pulled the door open and was reaching for the keys. I saw her before I could look away. Our eyes locked and time froze. I was sucked into this mass of confusing, conflicting thoughts and images. I saw all the love she had for me, how worried she was spinning in her stunning brown eyes but on top of that I saw her pain, her fear, her horror from the dream. It meshed together in my head and I felt myself reacting to it. I loved her eyes, no matter how many times I looked into them I always got this little surge of joy and desire. She was everything to me, but now I couldn't tell if I was reacting to the love in them or the despair from the dream. I wrenched my eyes away from hers, "Damn it!"

"I let you drive here which was suicidal enough!" She yelled, "No way in fucking hell you're offing yourself in the garage sitting in Baby! Fuck that!"

"I wasn't trying to. That wasn't it."

"Really? Sure as hell fooled me! For fuck's sake look at me!" Her hand gripped my chin but before she could pull my face around I grabbed her hand and stopped her.

"No! I can't!"

"Why?" There was so much fear behind her anger.

"Because it was you! Damn it Coyote! It was you! Please, go away! I can't.." Everything was on fire, my throat, my lungs. My stomach was clenched so tight it felt like a brick. "Take the keys if you're worried, just go away."

I'd felt her grip on my chin instantly relax, "Whatever it was, you know it wasn't real. It wasn't you."

"It doesn't matter. What I did, what I felt...everything's ruined. All of it."

"Why can't you tell me?" I heard her settle in on the seat.

I didn't answer.

She sighed, "Fine. I'll give you some space. Pop the hood."

"Why?"

"Do it."

I reached down and pulled the lever, she got and shut the door. I heard the hood creak open and I looked up. The hood would block her face but I could see her hands. She disconnected the battery and yanked it out. "There, now I know you won't do anything stupid. I'm calling Sam." She walked off, lugging the battery with her.

Even with everything I was dealing with that made me smile. I don't keep spare batteries in the garage, spare spark plugs and distributor caps, sure, but not batteries. Baby was totally out of commission as a car and I wouldn't take off with hers, no matter how bad off I was. I laid down across the seat, stared up at the hood and just let all the thoughts in my head drift. My phone rang, I knew who it was before I even looked, but I did anyway. It was Sam, of course. I declined the call. It rang again, I did the same thing. It rang one more time, I was just about to turn it off when I got a text message.

"Five minutes, if we're not talking on the phone by then I'm heading your way."

Two minutes passed, it rang again. I let it go to voice mail.

Two more minutes clicked by, another text, "Sixty seconds. I will also call every ten minutes once I hit the road. Pick up or I'll kick the living shit out of you when I get there. Then we'll talk."

The phone rang again, I gave up. I answered but didn't say anything.

"Talk to me. Coyote says you're sitting in Baby trying to off yourself."

"Was not. Well I was sitting in her but wasn't trying to off myself."

"Uh huh. Sure. Talk."

"Sam..."

"Start with where you were."

"Hell."

"Torturing or being tortured?"

Maybe I could do this in chunks. I just focused on the question, the words for the answer, not the images. "Torturing."

"Which one of us was on the rack?"

Just words, not images, words. "Her." I saw it again, but I fought the feelings. I tried to focus on something small in the dream, some stupid detail. There'd been a speck of rust on the cage Sam was in. Think about the rust, not anything else.

"Where was I?"

"Cage, over a fire."

"That's new."

"I know." My voice cracked.

"Are your eyes open right now or closed?"

"Closed."

"Open them, look at the glove compartment. Describe it to me."

I did, down to the fact that it looked like the upholstery needed to be conditioned again.

"Ready?"

He wanted to go to into more detail on the nightmare. I wanted to get some Armor All and start wiping her down, which was probably a good sign. Either that or a spectacular amount of repression, even for me. I knew we had to get through this, I had to, if I was ever going to be able to look at Coyote again.

"Yeah."

"Let's start easy. I've been in your nightmares enough and vice versa, what was going on with me?"

"Locked up, slowly roasting and yelling at me to stop what I was doing to her."

He paused, "She ever been in one of your dreams before?"

"No, somehow that's never happened. I've been having less and less of them and the ones I do have are short and pretty mundane, considering."

"It wasn't just what you were doing, was it?"

"No," my stomach dropped again but it wasn't as bad.

"All right, we'll get to that. Stick to what you were doing, not how you felt. Think you can?"

"Not sure, I'll try." We'd come up with this method of dealing with our nightmares with while on our month long vacation at Oliver's. He'd started researching psychology again to try to find ways to deal with all the traumatic shit we were unearthing when we were there. We had tried a bunch of different things and finally cobbled this together. It'd worked fairly well actually. Coyote and I had a different way of doing it but I couldn't talk to her right now. I took a deep breath and started describing it. "Naked, both of us were, you weren't, just so you know."

"That's comforting."

"Yeah, only non disturbing part about this. Blood everywhere, all over me. It started with her torn to shreds, almost dead. I told her what Alistair had said as to why I was so good at the job, how I could sense when souls were at that point where'd they stop hurting and snap them back to start it all over again. Then I did it to her, made her whole again." The phone felt slick in my hand, I could almost smell the burning flesh again, feel her blood on my skin.

"Don't close your eyes! Steering wheel, look at it. Take your time."

I focused on the edge of the decal, how the lights shined off of it. The smells went away, I switched the phone to my other hand and wiped my palm dry. "Okay, thanks. You started screaming at me to stop, I knew that physcial pain wasn't affecting you but the sight of me killing and..."

"Dean, stay with me."

"I took the tip of my knife, put it against her forehead just as I was about to..."

"Have sex?"

He knew that wasn't the right term, I had to say it, had to. "R...rape her." I rushed through the rest, "I timed it so I'd pull the blade down her face, her chest and stomach and get off at the exact same time I sliced her stomach open. Then my wolf showed up, slammed into me and I woke up." It was all there again, the pleasure. I couldn't stand it and slammed my fist into the dashboard.

"What was that?"

"Fist, dashboard."

"All right." He stopped talking. I was trying not to breathe fast. "Brace yourself."

I knew what was coming next.

"You enjoyed it, correct?"

I didn't want to admit it, to admit it meant that there was some part of me that was that twisted.

"Dean?"

"Yes. God Sam, it felt real, felt good, felt..." there was something running down my face, I wiped it away and looked at my finger. It was a tear, then everything broke. "Sam, why? What's wrong with me? How? Fuck!" I dropped the phone, only pain would make this feel better. I couldn't even make words, I just yelled, screamed and raged against everything. I kicked the door the few times then got out and went to town on the wall.

"Dean!"

I was throwing punches at the wall then she appeared in front of me. I couldn't stop in time but she blocked, some blood flew on her face. Blood..blood! I lunged back and fell against Baby's side. "Holy shit!"

She didn't even hesitate, just wrapped me in her arms and held on tight.

"No! Get away, please!" I couldn't bear the touch of her skin, I'd killed her, destroyed her, me...all me.

"No."

I tried to twist away but she didn't let go and she's nearly as strong as I am "I...you.."

"Dream Dean, dream. Not you, nothing in that has anything to do with you."

"It's my head, my feelings. It is me."

"It's a compiliation of things you've been through, you saw. Not who you are. That wasn't me, and it wasn't you. You'd never do that, no person, no thing, no curse could make you do that. Ever. You couldn't kill Sam, you'd never rape me. I know that. Remember what I said before we left? That this could happen? That seeing everything involved in hunting could make you unstable again?"

"Ye..yes."

"That's what this is. You know it, you have to."

I sank to the ground, she dropped with me. "I thought I was getting better. I'm not, it's all still there. You said it, so did the wolf."

She brushed her hand along my face, "You're wrong. In a twisted way this is a good thing."

"How in the hell is not being able to look at you without feeling sick to my stomach a good thing?"

"You didn't reach for a gun, a drink or just take a car and leave without a word. You didn't bury it. You told me to pack, you didn't run from me. You wanted to come back here, not go to a bar or on a hunt and take it out on the monsters. Tell me, when you and Sam were hunting, how often did you and he actually talk about shit like this?"

She knew the answer, "Pretty much never."

"Right, yet a few hours after this whole thing happened you just told him everything about it. See? You're not shoving me away, you still haven't looked at me but I'm holding you and you're not freaking out. You're dealing with it, not ignoring it."

That made the disgust recede a bit. "True."

"You can make it through this, past it. You're not falling into darkness again, you're reaching out for help. That's a good sign."

I'd been staring at the wall which had several holes in it now. I'd have to patch those up. There were red spots all around the holes, blood, mine. Suddenly the pain from my hands started to register, I looked down. My knuckles were a mess of torn, bloody skin filled with splinters. I expected the dream to hit me again but it didn't. I remembered what I'd told Sam when he was dealing with the Lucifer hallucinations, that real pain feels different than dream world pain. This hurt like hell, I slowly opened and closed my fists, nothing seemed broken but the lances of pain that shot through me actually felt kind of good. They helped separate me from the images in my head. This was real, not that place in my head. I could do this, move past it. I inched my hand towards hers and held it. Nothing flashed through me, no screams, no smells, just the feel of her hand in mine. I let that sink in for a minute or two then stopped looking at our hands and raised my eyes to her face. She was calm, steady as a rock, patient and there was a gentle, encouraging smile making her lips curve in just the right way. The memory of what I'd done in that nightmare came back but I didn't look away. I wouldn't let my fucked up subconscious win. I'd fought hard to get to be able to feel happy, feel whole. Faced all my damn demons, and there were a lot of them. Sometimes I felt I had more of them than actually resided in Hell. I wasn't going to let one nightmare trash all that.

"Babe?" She didn't move, didn't push things, just let me take my time.

I lifted my other hand and ran it through her hair. It was so soft, so alive. I let the feel of it take my mind off the pain and swelling in my knuckles. It felt good in the right ways, not the wrong ones. "I'm good, I think."

She leaned her head lightly into my palm, "How about we go inside, clean your hands off? I don't think you'll be wrenching much for a few days as swollen as they're liable to get. I can make some poultices from the herb garden. Rising Dove had a great recipe for stuff like this."

Inside, I could do that. "Probably not a bad idea."

We stood up, I glanced through Baby's window, I saw my phone on the floor. Sam was still on the line. I opened the door and picked it up. "Sam?"

"Better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"No problem. Get some rest."

"You too."

I hung up and took a quick look at Baby's interior. I hadn't dented her. I'd of felt horrible if I had. "Sorry, not exactly the best way to treat you the day after you get back."

" She understands, I'm sure," Coyote said.

"Yeah, she probably does. Let's go."

She kept her arm around me as we walked inside. As soon as I made it past the threshold I felt calmer. The old, and incorrect legends, about vampires and evil not being able to cross a threshold suddenly made sense. If you'd truly made a place your home and filled it with love, nothing, not a damn thing should be able to hurt you there. Sure vampires could walk in, but that would never destroy what she and I had built here. She walked me to the couch, I sat down and she went off to get her supplies. My knuckles were aching and hurting but it didn't matter. I'd been able to look at her, touch her. I hadn't ruined everything, I could still be whole, be with her, I'd managed to survive another hunt, that was all that mattered.


	32. When You're Not the Only One

She came back with a couple of thin cloths that were folded up, a bowl that was nested into a stack of bowls that was filled with steaming water that had some tea bag tags handing out of, some ace bandages and hydrogen peroxide. She also had a roll of paper towels. I could smell some of the herbs that she had used. I'd come to really like the smell of the mint we grew and sandalwood incense. She'd burn sandalwood a lot at night or when she was doing some sort of ritual and I'd started associating that smell with her, the mint she used in her tea. She'd slowly gotten me into the habit of drinking some here and there, it had this effect of helping me relax while clearing my head at the same time.

"Let's get started on this." She set a towel on the table and set my right hand on top of it. "I'll get the splinters out first, then clean them and wrap them, all right?"

"Sure." Fortunately I hadn't hit any studs so didn't need stitches.

She started picking out the splinters. I had so much scar tissue on my knuckles from years of bashing faces, blocking weapons and who knows what else in that I barely felt it. That took her about ten minutes to get both hands splinter free, then she set both my hands in one of the empty bowls and poured a bunch of hydrogen peroxide over them. That stung. Once the bubbling and hissing of the peroxide stopped she gently patted my knuckles dry. They were starting to swell and looking kind of purple. I'd really let the wall have it.

The next thing she did was pour a bunch of the tea over my hands. I recognized the smell, it was chamomile. That stuff cures just about everything I'd found out after moving in with her. It was a disinfectant among other things. She let that dry, poured another round or two of it over my hands then set that aside. The liquid in the bowl was an odd mix of yellow and red. I wasn't gushing blood but there was enough getting washed away to turn the tea a dark, red iron, rust color. Once that was done she moved my hands out of the bowl and set them on the towel.

She picked up one of the folded up cloths and set it on top of the knuckles of my right hand, it was damp. She must have soaked it before coming out, "Hold that."

I did as she asked and she lightly wrapped the poultice with the ace bandage so it wouldn't slip off, we repeated the process on the left hand.

"There. Should make the swelling go away faster and make the cuts heal faster. I'll take it off in about three hours or so."

"That felt a hell of a lot better than dumping cheap whiskey on my knuckles." The stinging was already settling down and the warmth was making the aching subside a bit.

She laughed, leaned back and put her arm around my shoulders. "Well that always works in a pinch."

She was drained, so was I but I didn't want to move. The sun had risen on the drive here, it was getting close to seven or so in the morning. I didn't really want to get my days and nights turned around but staying awake was starting to feel impossible, and it shouldn't be. I should still be paranoid to go back to sleep. "What'd you do?"

That got an mock innocent look out of her, "Nothing."

"I'm half asleep, that's not normal after a dream like that."

"So? Don't fight it. Get comfy." She pulled out the recliner part of the couch she was on, pushed it back so she was almost horizontal and lightly pulled my head towards her lap. "Rest. You need it. Don't worry about dreaming. I've got that covered."

"Only if you crash too."

She smiled and closed her eyes, "Sure. Now close your eyes and relax."

I have no idea how she pulled it off but all the tension left me and I felt like I was floating. I took a couple of deep breaths and passed out cold.

Something was vibrating in my pocket, "Stupid phone," I mumbled. I managed to get my eyes open and noticed a few things right off, it was a hell of a lot brighter than when I'd fallen asleep, I was starving and there was a pillow under my head, not Coyote's leg. I blinked a few times to clear the blurriness out of my eyes. "Coyote?" Nothing, "Hey, you here?" Still nothing, then I heard water running, she must be in the shower. I looked at my phone, it was one in the afternoon. "Holy crap! I slept that long?"

The poultices were off my hands but they were still lightly wrapped with the ace bandages. They weren't all that swollen either. Whatever was in those things worked wonders. I pulled off the bandages, the wounds had already started to scab over but my knuckles were an interesting shade of purple. I'd have to be careful not to reopen all the scrapes for a few days while they healed up. The phone vibrated again, I'd gotten two emails from Sam. The first one's subject said, "Don't open this until you're more calm." The second one said, "I'm not trying to get you back hunting, but you need to know."

Neither of those sounded good. It didn't say urgent, read now so I decided to ignore them until I had food, coffee and a shower. I started the coffee, grabbed some canned chicken noodle soup, poured it into a bowl and shoved it into the microwave.

Coyote came up behind me and gave me a hug, "Morning-ish."

"Hey there, want food?" I turned around and saw she was in sweats and a t-shirt. Her hair was still damp and hanging loose.

"Nope, ate already. Been up for a couple of hours catching up on emails."

"Oh, okay."

She grabbed a mug for coffee, "How you feeling?"

The microwave beeped, I pulled the bowl out, which was hot as hell but the soup was still lukewarm. Most annoying thing ever but I wasn't all that picky at the moment."Functional. Not freaking out."

"Good. I'm going to get some more work done. You?"

"Shower, then look at some not so positive sounding emails Sam just sent."

It was pretty obvious she didn't approve of that course of action, "Not sure that's such a great idea."

"I can't sleep all day, and should probably give the knuckles a day or so before I start patching walls and tuning up Baby."

"Watch a movie, decompress some more. Read a book, there's plenty of options here."

Since my brain was back to functioning in non panic mode it'd been tossing around what Kate had said, "Someone's hunting hunters. Which means both you and I are very possibly on the list. If nothing else we need to know what's going on to stay safe. I wasn't kidding about what I told Sam. I don't want to go back. Not if one hunt fucks me up that much, but we can't afford to be in the dark. Plenty of hunters know where we live which means someone could find out."

She frowned, "I can't really argue with that."

"Yeah, I know. I hate when I'm actually right about something. Let me get some food in me, you go work. I'll check the emails later."

"All right."

I downed the soup, pounded the coffee and took a quick shower. Once I dried off and got into some comfy clothes I settled onto the bed with my phone and opened the emails. They were both short and the second one had pictures attached. I started with the first one.

"Dean,

The rest of the hunters split up between different hotels like we said. Gerald dropped by the houses, grabbed the cameras we set and decided to see if anyone was on our tail. He put two in the lobby of the hotel we were at and one in his room and left. About three hours after we all left people came asking questions and someone broke into his room. I attached screen shots of their faces. I don't recognize them, Felicity is working on it. They're tracking us, all of us, somehow. Once we saw that footage I told them to leave town, hide their usual rides and steal new ones. Whoever is doing this knows hunters and how we work. They have to. Will update you later.

Sam"

That was seriously not good, I looked at the pics but didn't recognize anyone.

I opened the next one up.

"Dean,

Got the pics they took before we all left town. We have a problem, a big one. Any ideas on how he could be walking the earth again?"

There were two pics, I opened them. "Mother fucking son of a bitch! How?" It was Gordon, the Gordon that Sam had beheaded with razor wire. "How the fuck did you get out of Purgatory?" My mind went a million directions all at once. There was no fucking way, right?

I looked at the pics again, they were a bit grainy since it was dark but he was flanked by the white and grey business suit chicks that we'd seen at HQ house. They were walking into some sort of warehouse, it was hard to tell with two shots but it seemed like they were deferring to him. Not good.

I called Sam, he picked up on the second ring. "Can't be him, he's in fucking Purgatory!" Even though I knew the chances of it being a shifter or something else were microscopic I just wasn't willing to believe it.

"Um, so were you, I, Benny and Cas. Apparently he found a way out."

"Any chance it could be.."

"A shifter? Yeah, not likely since it would have had to have contact with him. He's been gone for years."

"This is so not good."

"Explains a lot though."

"Damn it!"

"Tell you what, you cuss and rant some more, then call me back when you're ready to plan," he snapped. Which wasn't like him.

"What's eating you?"

"You seriously can't be that dumb. He was after me, almost took me out. You think a few years in Purgatory has made him stop thinking I'm the source of all evil? I sent him there after all."

"Yeah, I remember. Sorry. Shit. Let me process this."

"Sure."

I stopped cussing and started thinking. It wasn't really relevant how he got out, he obviously found a way, maybe a Reaper he bullied into taking him out or...oh no. Kate had said that things were okay tell they showed up. I got into Purgatory because I was standing next to Dick when we killed him, sending he and all of his kind back to Purgatory. What if I hadn't been the only person that was collateral damage. I'd never seen another human in the year I was there but it was a huge place and I'd had my mind on other things. What if other human souls had gotten sucked into Purgatory and some of the more knowledgeable monsters knew how to get out. Benny had known the spell to get him out, I sure as hell didn't. If he knew, maybe others did.

"Sam...we may have an even bigger problem than Gordon."

"How?"

"Think about how I got to Purgatory, think about how many Leviathans there were, then think about how many other humans may have gotten sucked into that world when I shafted Dick."

"Once again, your phrasing leaves a lot to be desired."

"Screw that, put it together."

A few seconds passed. "I see your point." His voice was almost emotionless, not good.

"Gordon may have come back with friends."

"Yeah, but Benny couldn't handle being topside again."

"Benny was trying to not be a monster. Let's say these ones learned from their mistakes and not get killed again, then let's say they have a former hunter with a grudge willing to teach them all the ways to stay off our radars. Then, for fun, let's say said former hunter wants to take us all out to prove a point."

"I'd just like to state that I really hate it when you come up with theories like this."

"Why?"

He sighed, "Because they're usually right. How the hell do we handle this?"

"Not go off half cocked. I know, shocking coming from me. Get confirmation, find Gordon. Then we figure it out."

"All right, I'll work on that. You stay home, stay safe. Take it easy. I'll handle this."

"Can't do much anyway, busted my knuckles all to hell on the wall. Favor?"

"Yeah?"

"Load all of Magnus's research onto the site. He had monsters in a zoo. He had to know how to trap them or test for them. I'll delve through it while my knuckles heal."

"Sure. Dean, seriously, let me handle this."

I was researching, that was a step away from hunting, which I didn't want to do. "I will. Just researching to make the house safer and maybe give you guys an edge."

"All right. Talk soon."

"Yeah."

We hung up, Gordon Walker, the bastard that tried to kill Sam was back above ground, hunting hunters. Which meant hunting us. First things first, I had to tell Coyote. "Coyote!" I yelled, "Need to talk, come up for a second."

She walked in a few seconds later. "What's up?

"Problems, big ones. You might want to sit for this." She arched an eyebrow at me and sat next to me on the bed. "A long, and I mean long, time ago we came across a hunter who thought that Sam was the root of all evil because he'd found out about the Apocalypse." I figured that was a good lead in to the rest. I covered getting Gordon chucked into prison, who he was, why he hunted, the trap he'd set for Sam and how Sam had killed him.

"Sounds like a seriously disturbed guy," she said when I finished, "And what's the completely fucked up reason you're bringing him up now?'

"This is," I showed her the pictures. To her credit she didn't ask how he'd gotten out of Purgatory.

She skipped all that and went straight to the main issue, "Your theory is he's running things with the monsters now?'

"As of right now, only theory that makes sense."

She looked away from the picture and I felt like we'd gone back in time, back to when we used to meet in motels and hunt together. "He's coming after you and Sam."

"Well, us along with every other hunter out there probably."

"No," she shook her head, "That may be the excuse he used to get the rest of them to help him, but he's coming after you."

"If that's the case, I'm at least easy to find. Tons of hunters know where I am. If he's all that intent on it he'd shouldn't have that hard of time tracking me down."

"You're thinking he wants a clean kill, like before. He became a vampire Dean, spent who knows how long in Purgatory. You somehow think he's not after something a lot more drawn out and painful for you both? If he's the one in charge of this he's not just wiping out hunters for fun. There's a reason behind it, his sister dying got him into hunting, then he became what he hated but was still intent on killing you. He went for clean then, still had some humanity left. Now? If he's still that obsessed with you two this is all revolving around that."

That sent chills down my spine, I hadn't jumped that far ahead yet. I'd come back for Sam and I had Cas and Benny to help keep my eyes on the ball, if I hadn't had those two. Benny hadn't been lying about Purgatory feeling pure and simple. You're world was reduced to mere survival, for most of them. But there'd been others who'd relished making others suffer, even Benny feared them. It wasn't just the Leviathans that lived down there either, it was other monsters who'd been there way too long. Gordon could have easily become one of those.

"I'm getting Sam to post all of Magnus's writings to that server. Exiled Men of Letters who was a genius when it came to wards and all that. I'm going to seal this place up, hunker down. Hopefully find something that can help the guys sense when a monster is near them." I had to keep us safe.

She stood up, "Fine you do that, I'll tell Cougar to take over for me and leave tomorrow."

My heart went straight to my throat, "You what? Leave? Where?"

Her eyes were hard like agates, that's when I remembered I wasn't the only over protective person in the room, "To put this bastard back in the ground. Asshole thinks he can come after you and Sam? Fuck that!"

I was stopping that, like right now. I started clapping, "Oh, pulling a Dean Winchester huh? Running off half cocked, with no real leads, no information, straight into a superior force all by your damn self and hoping for the best. Sure, why not? That's always worked so well for that guy right? No possible chance that could backfire and hurt anyone else."

She fought with it, I knew every bit of that fight intimately. That urge to save others battling with logic. I just hoped logic won. She looked away, her chest rose and fell with a few deep breaths and her fists opened up. "Sorry."

"No worries, at least you know how to back down. I never did."

She sat back down, my heart stopped pounding, "All right, plan? Do we have one?"

My phone rang, it was Sam again.

"Yeah?"

"Gerald's been hit."

Scratch the heart slowing back down, "Hang on, putting you on speaker. There, go."

"Hi Coyote, to repeat, Gerald's been hit. He's fine but he got targeted. He had to dump his car, steal a police car, then dump that and hitch a ride with a trucker. He spotted some people that he'd got pics of back at the houses. They'd tracked him somehow to a new job he went on. He bailed, and fast. We need some direction here. If they're showing up at possible hunts..."

That kicked my brain into gear, "Cancel all hunts, email everyone to hunker the fuck down for now. Send copies of those pics to every hunter on your list and tell them to spread them around. If anyone happens to see them, send back when and where and have them watch them, but don't go hunting for them, not yet. Whether or not Gordon is running this he knows what to look for, how we think. Spread that pic of Gordon around as well."

"What? Everyone thinks he's dead."

"We hunt ghosts Sam, they can handle it. If they start asking questions, play dumb. For now we have no idea how people can get out of Purgatory and that's not really the issue at hand. Right now, no hunts, no driving around. Go to hidey holes and stay off the grid. Got it?"

"Okay, then what?"

"We need people no one knows. I'm calling Oliver. You call Roy, he's been hunting with you for awhile so someone may have seen his car at some point or other. Tell him to hide it for now. Any word back from Felicity?"

"No, she's still running facial recognition on the pics."

"All right. We all just need to step back and think."

"Yeah, got it. I'll get the Magnus stuff uploaded as soon as I'm done with that."

"Good."

"Call you later," he hung up.

Coyote and I looked at each other for a few seconds. "Why Oliver?" She asked.

"Because his group doesn't think like hunters and if we're going to make it through this we can't either."

I dialed Oliver's number, never thought I'd be calling the Arrow for help killing monsters.


	33. Gathering Allies

"Dean? What's up?"

"Hey Oliver. Am I interrupting any masked vigilanti-ism?" Oliver and I could be sixty years old, broken down and cranky but I'd still find some way to make fun of his costume.

"It's daylight, so no."

I loved that flat, pretend offended tone he used. "Ahh, right. Caped crusaders only strike at night."

Coyote rolled her eyes and snickered.

"I do not wear capes. Is there something important you need to talk about or are you just bored?"

"Bit of both."

There was a few seconds of silence, "I'm waiting."

"Oh, yeah right." I could just picture his face, "So how would Team Arrow like to trade in criminals for monsters for a bit. We have a kind of big problem here and need some out of the box thinking."

"What's the problem?"

"This could take some time to explain so get comfy."

"Dean, is there anything in your life that doesn't take some time to explain?"

"Uh, no. Not really. Here goes." I told him from the beginning, they'd need all the facts for this. Things tend to go badly when people don't know the whole story. I'd finally learned that lesson after the Mark. He didn't interrupt with any questions or random exclamations of my possible insanity. He knew us well enough to know that pretty much anything can, will or has happened to Sam and I. "So, to sum up, former hunter turned vampire returning from Purgatory with a huge chip on his shoulder, at the very least."

"You have been to Hell and Purgatory?"

"Yup."

There was a long pause, almost too long, "And Heaven? Have you met God?"

He'd lost that businesslike tone and sounded almost vulnerable. "Been to Heaven once or twice, haven't met God directly. He may have slipped one in on Sammy and I at some point. Met archangels though and you've met Cas. I've also met the King of Hell, roadtripped with him, but that's a whole other story. Why?"

"Do you think.. I mean when people pray..does anything out there really care?"

I hadn't heard him that shaky since the night we'd stayed up late in his penthouse suite and he opened up about the island and his past. I sighed, "Honest answer? Some angels do, angels like Cas and a few others. The majority of the ones we've come across though are dicks. As far as God goes, not even the angels know where he's been for the last few eons. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, just been opening up to Felicity more. Talking about the past, you know how that goes I'm sure. When things were at their worst, I used to pray, especially at the beginning. I don't know if I ever believed, but I prayed, mostly out of desperation I guess. You must have too."

That brought a few not so good things back, "I did once, I did a full angel broadcast actually. It didn't end well."

"Oh. I see. So, all of that was wasted energy I guess."

There was a lot more dissappointment in his voice then I'd ever expect to hear, "Not necessarily, remember Shado and Yao Fei came back to help you in that warehouse. My opinion, for what it's worth, is this. I've lived with a Shaman for a year, I've seen what she can do, how her Spirits help her. Are there things out there that help? Yes. Is there an entire choir of angels and a God who's whole job is to take care of humans? From what I've seen, no. Nothing in any world I've ever been on is that black and white. Hell, a vampire became a second brother to me in Purgatory. We've had demons that have helped us, the King of Hell being one of them. Did he do it for his own reasons? Sure, but the fact is he's saved our hides a few times, just like Cas. If praying helps you sleep at night, go for it. I'd never tell anyone what to do when it comes to that. I may know a lot more than most people, but I still don't know everything."

"Thanks, that gives me something to think about anyway." He took a breath and switched back to business, "About this Gordon. How do you think we can help?"

"Other than the Eighth Wonder of the World aka Felicity helping us track things and gather info, I think we need people that no monster or hunter knows out here. We need someone that doesn't move, think or act like a hunter to surprise them, give us a chance to get close. You guys don't, that might throw them off. Sam and I are pretty sure they are tracking hunters, I want to switch things up. Hunters, even Sam and I, we don't think in group strategy, coordinated attacks, all that. We can wing it, sure, but I want your's and Dig's input. If I roll into a town with a group of hunters to try to take out a group of Gordon's friends or even Gordon himself, they'll see us coming. You and your group, not so much, not with your higher class gear, cars and looks. Monsters won't give you a second look."

He mulled that over for a minute or two.

"Wait," Coyote said, "Are you saying I'm low class?"

Whoops, "Course not, but you've hunted before."

"Yeah, years ago." She corrected, with quite a bit of sass, "I could be a stealth hunter, you and Sam though, never happen."

I saw a safe way out of this, "Which is exactly why we need Oliver's team."

"Nice save Dean," Oliver said.

"Thanks."

Coyote frowned but let it slide.

He chuckled, "I see your point though, we could come in looking like business people, rented cars all that."

"Exactly."

"Only problem is once we start taking out these groups they'll start putting two and two together quick. Even if I suit up and we go undercover so to speak it won't take too long to figure it out. You need to get solid intel on where to strike."

"Good point. Sam's gathering some info. I told the hunters to go off grid for now until we had a plan."

"You need bait hunters. Ones who act normal and try to draw these guys out."

I really didn't like that concept.

"I know, it's a risk," Oliver continued, "But if you guys all hide that will make it kind of hard to find them. In these situations both sides are playing cat and mouse. It's possible that whatever tipped off this hunter Gerald was planned to do just that. Pull you guys in and give them hunters to follow."

"Shit, I hadn't thought about that. This is why we need you guys. This is a lot more of your ballpark than ours."

"I agree. Do you want us to come to your house or the Bunker?"

I thought about it. The Bunker was even farther off the beaten path than my house and a lot less people knew about it's existence. "Let me run all this by Sam, see what he thinks is better. Downside to the Bunker is no real internet access, Sam and I use our cell hotspots. Felicity will have to bring something to get her usual speeds for access if she comes."

"I'm quite sure she can handle that."

"All right, I'll talk to Sam then one of us will call you back. Sound good?"

"I'll fill everyone here in. Roy and Thea are still on vacation though."

"Sam was going to call Roy and tell him to hide his car just in case. So they may be heading back anyway."

"Okay. Talk soon then."

"Yeah." We hung up. I called Sam, it didn't even finish ringing before he picked up.

"Hey, just got off the phone with Roy. He and Thea are cutting their trip a bit short. I told him not to but he said it that this was more important. They'll head back to Starling some time tomorrow when they can get the next flight out."

"All right, I filled Oliver in on Gordon's history, Purgatory, all of it. No reason to have them going in blind. He mentioned that our new enemies may be staging kills to draw hunters out so they can track us, hadn't thought about that. I'm now extra happy we told everyone to stay clear of hunts for the time being. He did say though that both our side and there's are going to be playing cat and mouse so we may need bait hunters to attract attention and draw them out. He pointed out that his crew's anonymity will go downhill fast as soon as they start taking monsters out so we have to be damn sure of our facts when we send them out to hunt. I'm not thrilled with bait hunters but he has a point."

"Me either but you're right."

"He's willing to get the crew together and head out this way, wanted to know if they should come here or the Bunker. I think the Bunker's safer but Felicity may have problems hacking into things from there."

"She can stay in Starling, she has everything she needs there," he stated a little too forefully, "No reason to have her out here. Just makes more sense."

That and I'm pretty damn sure he didn't want her anywhere near monsters, he didn't need to lose another woman he cared about. "Good point. So have them go there?"

"Yeah," there was a beat before he kept talking, "And you? Staying there?"

"I..." I looked at Coyote, she didn't give any indication of what I should do. "I have to think about it."

"We will need someone on research, that'll help a lot, you know that."

He was trying to make me feel better, but fact was this was quickly becoming personal. "I know. I'll let you know later. Update me if anything else happens. Get anything useful from your houseguest?"

"No, getting ready to up the ante on it though."

I chose not to think about what that would entail, "All right. Be careful."

"Yeah. Call ya later. Oh, check the server in a few. Uploaded a bunch of stuff, should be done soon."

"Okay."

Coyote didn't say anything and I needed to move, do something. "I'm going to go clean Baby up."

"Want company?"

"No, you've got work to do. I'm good."

I texted Oliver on the way to the garage to head to the Bunker, set my phone down on the counter and grabbed a cloth and some Armor All. I got into the driver's side and started rubbing the little bits of dust off her. Sam already had people that just gathered information, they were just as crucial to getting the job done as the guys out in the field and coordinating something like this would need people like that. Of course once Felicity got on the job, she'd be able to sort through things a lot faster than any normal human could, but she could miss something. She wasn't a hunter, she'd need eyes like mine to find shit. Right? I could do this, help out and not get anywhere close to an actual hunt. No one would blame me, they all knew where I stood. Sam wouldn't be alone, he'd have Dig, Oliver and Roy with him, they could keep him safe. Probably better than I could.

I'd gotten all the dust off, so I grabbed the can, covered the dash with the conditioner and started working it in.

Hell, if I had another fucked up dream like that out in the field I'd be a liablity, not a help. Right? I didn't have the edge anymore, didn't want to have the edge anymore. It was going to get nasty out there. If it was Gordon running things he'd have to be even more damaged than I was when I got back from Purgatory, not that he'd been all that stable to begin with. He'd want to make things bloody, especially now. You don't recruit monsters and keep them on a tight leash without a promise for some serious feeding frenzies later. Who was I now? I'd like to think a happily retired hunter.

I heard some kids run by the garage, my hand froze mid swipe. If they tracked me down, this whole damn town would be possible collateral damage. Every single one of these people would be leverage to use against me. The cloth slid from my hand just about the same time my face landed on the steering wheel. "Shit. A hunter's worst nightmare. Fuck."

My phone buzzed, "Of course. I'm sure this will be the call saying I won the lottery." I answered it just before it went to voice mail.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Tom and Sarah." His voice was dead, cold and filled with rage all at the same time. Double shit.

"How bad?"

"They were on the way to their safe house, got run off the road. They..." He was fighting for control, "Ripped him to shreds, made her watch, then turned him, left him tied up, gave her a machete and a message."

"Which was?"

"And now it begins."

"She call you?"

"Yes, after she killed him."

Baby looked so beautiful sitting there, she looked like a show car. No one would never know by looking at her the number of times she'd been utterly destroyed, the amount of blood, tears and pain she'd seen. How much laughter she'd heard, the miles she'd traveled. They couldn't imagine how many hours I'd spent getting her frame straight, scavenging parts, rebuilding her from basically scratch. Guess the last year people could say the same about me. If you didn't look too close, ask too many questions, I'd seem like decently attractive guy, good sense of humor, loyal and cool to hang out with. At least until you took a better look and saw the scars on my body, spent a night with me watching me sweat and struggle against my memories or, if you were stupid enough to threaten someone I knew. Then you'd see the real me. Just like Baby, if you opened her trunk, unlocked the weapons box or ripped the upholstery off the roof, you'd see what she was really was. You may not understand it, but you'd know that she wasn't just a pretty face.

"Dean? Hey, you with me?"

"Everyone else accounted for?" That couldn't be my voice, it was so dead.

"Yeah, seems that way. At least the ones I stay in contact with. I'll tell the rest to reach out."

"Coyote and I have to figure some stuff out but I'll be there tomorrow."

"All right..."

He had something he wanted to say. "Say it."

"I'm sorry, about all of it."

"Don't be. Shit happens, just happens more to us than anyone else on the fucking planet." I didn't let him answer before I hung up.

I walked into the house, slammed the door and saw Coyote jump and spin around to look my direction, "What..." She got one look at me and froze. "Happened?"

"Tom's dead, of Tom and Sarah. They tortured him, turned him, left her there to kill him and tell us that things have started. I'm going to the Bunker tomorrow." Tom and Sarah had been helping with the truck stop. We'd had them over for dinner a few times too. They were good people.

Anger flashed in her eyes, which quickly changed to wariness, "Stop, think."

"Coyote..." I snarled, then caught myself. She was saying that for a reason.

"How did Sam find out?" She asked without batting an eye at my mood.

"She called him. Why?"

"So, no actual confirmation that this happened?"

"What do mean?"

"Do we know if shifters aren't involved? Someone could have stolen her phone, touched her, shifted."

That brought on a whole new level of paranoia, "We don't, but here's the problem with that whole scenario."

"What?"

"One, if they know enough to know to call Sam we're already fucked."

She nodded, "Granted."

"And two, if shifters are already involved we can't trust anyone. Which brings this whole thing to a screeching halt."

She whistled and leaned back in her chair, "We also don't know when this whole thing actually started either. All of this seems rather sudden don't you think? You go on a hunt to get vamps for Jacob that you just happen to run into Kate at which throws up a shit ton of red flags, then attacks start happening. I think you and Sam stumbled into something and they're speeding up their time table. They may have recognized you two and are panicking now, especially since everyone bailed so fast on that hunt."

"Son of a bitch. I need a way to tell who's who fast. There's got to be some way.." then it hit me. "Cas."

"The angel?"

"Yeah. And you. You can see vamps and weres right?"

"Yes, but I can't be all over the country."

"Cas can't either but between the two of you we might be able to work something out."

"Why bring him in at all?"

I had been avoiding him for a year, I felt bad calling him now but this was getting to be way too big, "Because he's the only thing that's bigger and badder than they are. Short of Crowley, who I never want to see again." I could have had Sam call him, but I'd rather not have an awkward reunion with him in front of Oliver's crew. Even though he'd volunteered to give me space I probably could have called him once or twice.

I crossed the living room, sat down at the dining room table, dialed the number I had for him and hoped it was still good. Coyote took the seat across from me, she was keeping her face as neutral as possible. It didn't hide the anger and pain in her eyes.

"Dean?"

That was his raspy voice all right, "Cas. Hi."

"Hello."

Normal people? I'd assume the awkward pause meant they were pissed off at me, with Cas it was more than likely he had no idea what to say.

"Are you well?"

"For the most part. Have you talked to Sam today?"

"No, our usual day for speaking is Saturday. He seems to consistently call me Saturday mornings when he's eating breakfast. I still haven't figured out why that is my allotted time."

Somehow, no matter what horrible fate we were staring down, talking to Cas could still make me chuckle. At least on the inside. Years now, years and he's still this clueless sometimes. It amazes me. "I'm sure he has a reason for it."

"Of course, Sam is very organized."

"Right, look, uh I know it's been a year and all but something's happened. We need your help."

"We? As in you and Running Coyote?"

"No, as in me and Sam. Actually pretty much every hunter out there."

"You and Sam? You're returning to hunting?"

Coyote must have heard the question because she reached across the table and placed her hand over mine. She knew what I'd been mulling over in the garage and what the slamming door had meant, I had to make a choice. Sit on the sidelines and try to be a crappy version of Felicity or do what I do best, hunt. When I'd walked in I'd been pissed, still was, but that had been emotions. I had to think rationally to commit to this, not go off half cocked. That was why she'd told me to stop and think, not just because of her very pertinent shifter theory.

I ran it all through my head one more time. Events were, as usual, trying to sweep me along with them. What mattered to me was what always had and always will, people who I know, who I love, who I call family. Sure, I could sit here and hope no monsters came to town and try to massacre these people, send Sam and Oliver out to do the dirty work but would I be able to accept that. They would, but could I. For some odd reason Henry came to mind, how he went from utterly disdaining hunters to respecting us, and not just because we were his grandkids. Same with Magnus, sure he went way off the deep end but he'd had a point, what is all that knowledge good for if it sits there. I'm not, nor will I ever be a Man of Letters. Yeah, sure, I love research but sending someone else out to get killed, that wasn't me and it wasn't Sam either. If it was, he would have retired right along with me.

"Yes. Not permanently, but for the time being, yes."

Coyote gripped my hand tighter and leaned closer to me, "Then so am I," she whispered.

I shook my head, "Cas hold on." I muted the phone. "What? No. I don't want you.."

She stood up, her face set in stone, so was her mind. Damn it!

"Finish with Cas. Meet me in my room upstairs when you're done." She walked past me without another word.

I wanted to go after her but first things first, I unmuted the phone, "Sorry Cas. I'm back."

"It's that serious."

"Yes, listen," I rattled everything off to him. "I figure since you can see the true faces of demons, you should be able to see monsters as well."

"I can, in a way. It's not the same as it is with demons since they are not possessed of course. You see..."

"Great, so you can. Perfect." I wasn't in the mood for an extended existential discussion, "Can you get to the Bunker within the next day or so?"

"Of course."

"Good, hit the road. I'll see you there."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"It will be good to see you again, even if it's under these circumstances. I have missed you."

That hit me a bit, "Yeah, same here. Look, thanks for.." What was I supposed to say, staying away because I didn't want to have you attract bad crap to me? That was pretty damn selfish.

"Understanding?" He filled in.

"I should have at least called."

"No, you shouldn't have." There was no hesitation in his words.

"Really?"

"Dean, as I said, Sam and I talk frequently. He has told me how happy you have been, how happy she has made you. How you have had time to truly live, not suffer as you have for so long. I would not risk jeopardizing that, I know how my presence can serve as a beacon for other things. Do not feel guilty for not speaking with me, please."

"Wow, uh, all right. I guess I'll see you at the Bunker."

"Indeed. Drive safe."

He hung up. I didn't have time to savor that moment because I had to go talk Coyote out of going full hunter. She had other responsibilities now, she had her people. They'd need her here. I made it up the stairs and went into the room. I'd never actually been in it before. Once she told me what it was, I'd kept out. Not because she asked but because I didn't want to corrupt it somehow. I had looked into it plenty of times and I'm pretty sure I'd remember a gun safe. She'd shoved the spare clothes aside and was pulling out a crap ton of weapons. It didn't take too long before I recognized a few, it was her old hunter's weapons stash.

"No, not just no, but hell no." I said, I was standing in the doorway. I still didn't feel all that comfortable with the idea of stepping into the room.

She didn't even bother to stop unpacking the weapons, "Telling me what to do now? Bad idea."

"Damn it sweetheart! You have your people to look after, your jobs, your life here. You can't just up and leave! They depend on you."

She stopped unpacking, that's when it dawned on me that pissing her off when she was within range of a whole pile of lethal things was probably not the best way to go about this. "And hunters aren't my people? The hunters that have gone out of their way to help my people? The same hunters I spent years with before I was a Shaman? Is that what you're insinuating?"

I'd started this off on the completely wrong foot, "No, not all. What I am saying is that you are..." I thought about it, "Rephrase that. There is only one Shaman here, whereas with Oliver's crew, Cas, Sam and I and the rest we can handle this. You have clients, deadlines, tribal meetings. All those things that you need to take care of."

Both her fists clenched, her jawline bulged from the sheer force of her emotions. "And do you think any, and I mean any, of that will mean a damn thing to me if I lose you? You could sit this out, you're not. What gives you the damned right to tell me what to do? After what you said back at the Bunker? After that nightmare? After this last year? You think you can walk out of this house, wave to me as I forlornly stare after Baby and then go about my lfe? How dare you! You are my family, you and Sam and Cougar. My tribe? These people? Yes, I care for them but they have no damn idea who I really am. You do. So shut the fuck up. You made a declaration of intent back there, I even fucking clarified it. You said all that matters to you is ending up next to me, well all that matters to me is always being next to you. Come hell, highwater or monsters. Do you understand?"

All of a sudden I was shoving her against the wall and burying my face in her neck, my teeth slid along her collarbone and I felt her shudder in pleasure. I didn't even remember moving, it wasn't important, she was. We were. "Yeah, I understand." I whispered, pulling another shudder from her.

Her hands went to pull off my shirt, I grabbed them and pinned them on the wall. Our breaths were coming in almost perfect sync, there were no words, there didn't to be. I slid up against her, shifting my hips along hers, her moans switched to a low, almost subvocal growl. A delicious tinge of pain shot down my arm from her using the only thing she had, her teeth, to make an impression. I shifted my hands, took both her wrists in one of my hands and slid the other one down into her pants. That's when I was reminded how swollen and scraped up my knuckles were. That was not a good kind of pain.

"Mother fucker!" I slowly pulled my hand out of her pants, "Right, new plan." I ducked down, threw her over my shoulder and carried her into our room. She was laughing the whole way.

"I can't stay mad at you, seriously."

"Good." I gently set her down on the bed. "Okay, now those come off." Which took me about three seconds, my clothes followed about four seconds after that. I settled on top of her, she wrapped her legs around me. We'd had all the foreplay we needed this time around. I looked down at her; she was smiling, excited, happy. For a second, one second, that dream came back to me and I stopped moving.

"Babe?" She unlocked her legs and shifted to kneel in front of me. Then she rose up on her knees and guided me inside, she set the pace and the dream vanished, consumed in that moment of feeling whole again.

Hunting, my demons, the darkness, years of pain, none of that had any power over me right then, and I'd fight with every last inch of my life and my soul to make sure that tomorrow, the next day, a year from now, they never would again. The only thing I'd allow to consume me anymore was her, us.

-End (not end, end. End of this book. Fear not loyal readers. The next one will be started shortly, and yes. It will pick up right where this one left off.)


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